


Skeleton Key to My Heart

by Amuly



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Anal Fingering, Blow Jobs, Bottom Richie Tozier, Broken Bones, Closeted Character, Clothed Sex, Coming In Pants, Coming Out, Couch Cuddles, Couch Sex, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Dry Humping, First Kiss, First Time, First Time Blow Jobs, Gloves, Hand Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Moving In Together, Prostate Massage, Prostate Milking, Top Eddie Kaspbrak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:29:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 31,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22757812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amuly/pseuds/Amuly
Summary: After they kill that fucking clown, Richie is left with a broken arm, a list of bad baseball comedy jokes, and one beautiful, dedicated nurse by the name of Eddie Kaspbrak. But then Richie's manager Steve rushes to his side, and Richie's seeing double as the two most important men in Richie's life square off to see who can Handle Richie Tozier's Shit the best. Which isn't a bad problem to have, in Richie's book--he just wishes they could figure out how to get along.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 183
Kudos: 1173





	1. The Hole In My Heart That Looks Like You

The first thing Richie saw was Eddie, gesticulating furiously at a “I am too tired for this bullshit” nurse. He was mostly turned away, and all Richie could see was the back of his head and a glimmer of his jaw and profile as he talked, right hand chopping down against the open palm of his left.

Richie started to laugh. Then he coughed. Then he choked. Oh, fuck, there was something in his throat, oh, _fuck_ , he was choking, he was dying-

_Eddie-!_

The nurse and Eddie turned to Richie in one movement. The nurse moved past Eddie, nudging him aside unhurriedly as she strode over to Richie’s bedside. Blinking frantically, begging Eddie silently to help, _help me, Doctor K-!_ , Richie had one second of catching Eddie’s eyes with his own. They were wide, frantic. Richie tried to reach out for him-

The world blinked out of existence.

Richie forgot.

* * *

The light felt kind of morning-y, though Richie wasn’t sure why he thought himself to be an authority on what the world looked like before ten am. Still, it was either morning or evening, and it didn’t feel like evening. More soft blue light and less orangey slanting light (shouldn’t morning and evening light be the same? Huh, Richie’d never thought about that before. How did you tell the difference between am and pm? Silently Richie swore to himself that he’d change all his clocks to military time when he got out of here, because the sudden realization that he might not be in a position to _know_ if it was morning or evening filled him with sudden, irrational anxiety).

There was movement in the corner of his room: that’s why he’d woken up. Or, okay, maybe that wasn’t _why_ —there was probably plenty of movement in a hospital room that Richie had slept straight through. But for whatever reason Richie was awake this time, and therefore able to witness Eddie in the corner of his room, messing around with a duffle bag, a brown duffle bag…

“That’s mine,” Richie croaked.

Eddie spun around, not even having the good taste to look guilty, the little bastard. Instead he was rushing over, reaching out for Richie, concern plastered all across his face. Richie started to grin. Doctor K was worried about him. It was a dream come true.

Then Richie stopped being awake.

* * *

“If you don’t want him breaking them you should just leave them on the table,” a woman’s voice was saying.

“Every time he wakes up he asks for them. It’s just easier this way.” That was Ed’s voice! Richie tried to open his eyes and see the beautiful bastard, but his body wasn’t cooperating today.

“What’s he need to see? It’s four walls and you.”

“You don’t understand,” Eddie sighed, and Richie _remembered_ that sigh, somehow. “When he got his tonsils out he cried until I got his glasses for him because he ‘needed visual proof you’re still here.’”

The nurse emptying Richie’s catheter snorted. “Cute. So you guys have known each other since grade school?”

“Yeah, but he was fucking fourteen when that happened, the whiney little bitch.”

Richie tried to open his eyes to defend his honor, but the most he managed was a dopey, closed-eyed smile at Eddie’s dig. Good job, Eddie. Keep ‘em coming.

* * *

Someone was holding his hand. _Eddie_ was holding his hand. Richie smiled over at him.

“Eds…”

Eddie was still holding his hand, but he was cursing quietly.

“Fuck, it needs your password for me to turn the password off. Richie, what’s your password?”

Eddie dropped his hand. Richie frowned down at Eddie’s hand. Man: way to love and run. He coulda held Richie’s hand just a _little_ longer. Unless he had been? Oh fucking damn it: had Richie missed out on _primo_ hand-holding time just because he’d been in some sort of medical coma? Fucking bullshit.

“Richie!” Eddie snapped his fingers just in front of Richie’s nose. Richie went cross-eyed trying to look at those fingers. Eddie’s face swam in front of Richie’s eyes. “Password? I need to change it so I don’t have to use your hand every time.”

“Huh?” Richie blinked blearily at the phone in Eddie’s hand. “Hey. That’s mine.”

“ _Password_!”

Richie blinked. “Uh… birthday.”

“The month and day or the month and yea- Richie? Shit, Rich-”

Richie was already asleep.

* * *

Eddie was shouting at something. Richie grinned and tried to roll over, reaching for him.

His arm jerked, something yanking him back. He blinked and looked down, confronted by a series of tubes coming out of his arm. What the hell?

Well, wait. Of course he wasn’t in bed with Eddie. He hadn’t even admitted the whole… all _that_ bullshit. To anyone. Well, Steve knew. But it was Steve’s job to know shit like that. Anything that could be a liability. So he knew all about Richie’s unfortunate (former) coke habit, that escort in Vegas, the time he broke Elton John’s toilet at a party. And the fucking… (his mind could only whisper it: _gay_ ) …thing.

“Eddie?”

Richie felt nauseous. Uh-oh.

“Richie?”

Richie puked all over his hospital gown.

Richie fell asleep.

* * *

“Look, Myra, I don’t- No. No. I don’t care. That’s it. I don’t need to talk about it. No. No. No, I- No. No.”

“That’s what she said,” Richie coughed weakly.

Without even missing a bit, Eddie shot over his shoulder, “Beep beep, Richie.” Then he blinked and grinned—sharp and quick, if Richie hadn’t been looking he would have missed it. He turned back to his phone. “Myra, I have to go. Myra. Myra- oh, fuck it,” he muttered, and hung up.

Richie tried to move towards him, but Eddie quickly slid against Richie’s side and grabbed his arm. He sighed, holding Richie’s wrist tenderly in his palm. Richie gaped up at Eddie, not sure what to do with this dream come true, physical and real in front of him, holding his wrist like something out of Jane Austen.

“You keep forgetting you’re hooked up,” Eddie chastised him.

Richie blinked and looked at his arm. Huh. Look at all these fucking wires. Richie moved, trying to bring his right arm around. But Eddie winced, eyes darting over Richie’s face. Richie’s arm wasn’t moving. Huh? Richie looked down.

Oh. That was a _lot_ of cast. It went from the fingertips on Richie’s right hand all the way up _past_ his shoulder.

 _Rookie of the Year_ , Richie thought. But as he grinned and opened his mouth, he fell asleep.

* * *

“Look, I don’t know who the fuck you think you are, but _I’ve_ got Richie’s best interests at heart.”

Eddie was yelling at someone. When there was no reply, just the steady beat of a heart monitor and intermittent other sundry hospital noises, Richie realized it must be to someone on the other end of a phone call.

“I don’t give a shit if you’ve known him for fifteen years I’ve known him for thirty-five, dickwad.”

Richie wondered who Eddie was talking to.

“I’m his best friend, who the fuck are _you_?”

Something warm glowed inside of Richie inside of that.

“Well I haven’t heard of _you_ , how about that, huh?”

Richie laughed and tried to wave at Eddie to bring the phone over to him. But, huh. His right arm didn’t work. Why- whoa. That was a lot of cast. Huh. It must have happened when he saved-

Richie’s stomach roiled. Oh, fuck. The fucking clown. Eddie- But, no. Eddie was right there, alive and well. Screaming down his phone—actually, Richie’s phone, that was definitely Richie’s shitty joke phone case—at God knows who.

Okay, wait. If Eddie was screaming at someone on _Richie’s_ phone, actually, Richie should _probably_ run interference on that.

But then Richie fell asleep again, and that kind of put the kabosh on all his best laid plans.

* * *

Richie screamed himself awake. Someone was on top of him, holding him in place. Richie screamed in their face.

“It’s me, it’s Eddie, Richie, it’s Eddie, I’m here, I’m here, it’s Eddie, I’m here.”

Richie gasped so long and so deep he was certain he hadn’t taken a breath for minutes. His whole body shuddered, skin on the top of his scalp tingling. He gasped again, and again. The hands stayed on his shoulders, warm and firm.

“It’s me. It’s Eddie. I’m here, Richie, I’m here, I’m alive, everyone’s alive, _you’re_ alive. It’s Eddie.”

“ _Eddie_ ,” Richie managed to croak.

“It’s me, it’s Eddie,” Eddie repeated, like he knew Richie needed to hear it. He’d probably had to do this a half dozen, a dozen times already. “I’m here, Richie. Everything’s alright. Everyone’s alive. You’re safe. It’s me. It’s Eddie”

Eddie patted Richie’s left shoulder, squeezed it firmly. His other hand was pressed to Richie’s sternum. Richie blinked, Eddie’s face coming into focus.

He wanted to stay like that forever.

Richie gazed up at Eddie and wondered if he could get away with kissing him and blaming it on the meds.

He probably wouldn’t remember it if he did, though. And Richie wanted to remember it.

Richie swayed towards him.

And then he fell asleep.

* * *

The first thing Richie heard was his phone ringing. But the second thing he heard was what _song_ it was playing. That was his manager’s specific ringtone, the _We represent the lollipop guild…_ lyrics floating through the room. Richie struggled to open his eyes. He probably needed to be awake for this. But everything in his body was working on like, one-fourth speed, or some stupid fraction, and for now all Richie could do was listen with his eyes closed.

“You got the records I faxed over to you?”

Records? Maybe Richie’s medical records. Fuck, Richie had missed some tour dates, hadn’t he? He felt like he’d been in the hospital—this couldn’t be the first time he’d woken up, right? If it was a week or more Steve was probably getting frantic, canceling shows and working up revised schedules. Richie smiled softly. Steve was great like that.

Richie also, very abruptly, realized why exactly he’d been attracted to Steve in the first place. That fucking clown might have stolen his memories but apparently it couldn’t steal them all. Eddie’d imprinted himself on Richie’s heart in some sort of deep, utterly indelible way that even a child-eating space clown couldn’t erase.

“Well it’s not like _I_ stabbed him through the fucking shoulder, don’t fucking yell at _me_.”

Richie struggled to open his eyes. He had a feeling he needed to de-escalate things. If Eddie was talking to Steve-

“Well fuck _you_ very much! This isn’t fucking _Misery_ , I’m not holding the _great_ comedian Richie Tozier hostage against his _will_. He can’t even fucking pee on his own, what do you want-”

Oh, no. Eddie and Steve. Richie started to manage to open his eyes. Eddie was pacing on the other side of the room, gesticulating _wildly_ at Richie’s phone. Hey, that was Richie’s phone. Richie tried to talk, but he couldn’t get that far. Eyes open was the best he could manage.

“Listen asshole, I don’t see you out here helping the nurse change his catheter!”

Richie whimpered. He didn’t want Eds changing his _catheter_. Ugh, how was he ever going to develop a midlife gay crisis over Richie _now_?

“If you’re so fucking concerned about your _client_ , why don’t you haul your ass out here and take care of him yourself?”

Uh-oh. Richie tried to hold out his hand—holy shit. His whole arm was in a cast. When did… Fuck. Richie looked down at himself. He was really wired up to shit, huh?

Heheh. Rookie of the Year. He’d have to remember to make that joke. Once he stopped Eddie from goading Steve into-

“Oh. Uh. No, I mean- Uh. Derry, Maine. No, look, you-”

Eddie hung up the phone. Eddie stared down at the phone, looking faintly shell-shocked.

“Eddie?” Richie finally managed to croak.

Eddie rushed over to Richie’s bedside, checking his vitals on the monitor, eyes running over the wires and tubes poking out of Richie—checking to make sure he didn’t yank any of them out when he woke up, Richie figured. It did seem like the kind of thing he’d do. Richie flashed a crooked smile at him.

“I’m good, Eddie. Relax. So tell me what the fuck that was all about?”

Gingerly Eddie set the phone onto the bedside table. He winced down at Richie.

“Uh… I _may_ have just… So, I think your… manager? Is flying out here?”

“Steve?” Richie asked, eyes already slipping closed. “I should have warned you. Would have warned you. Couldn’t forget…”

“It’s okay Richie. You’ve got a lot… going on.”

“I mean,” it was important Eddie understood this. _Before_ Eddie was confronted with his five foot seven doppleganger. “You. Couldn’t forget you.”

“We all forgot,” Eddie tried to comfort him, but that wasn’t what Richie _meant_.

“Steve…”

“It’s alright, Richie. I’ll handle him.”

That wasn’t what Richie meant. But it was too late now. Richie sank back into oblivion.

* * *

“I don’t want to let him in here. What the fuck am I supposed to do?”

“Eddie, he’s Richie’s friend. You can’t-”

“He’s his _manager_ , Mike.”

“We don’t know anything about each other’s lives. Who we knew. Who our friends were. His manager at least needs to know that his client is injured-”

“No, fuck that, Mike! No, _I’m_ the one taking care of him, this _Steve_ guy-”

Richie smacked the nasty taste from his mouth.

“Oh, Steve’s cool,” he informed Eddie. And, hey: Mike was here, too. “Hey Mike.”

Mike hurried over to Richie’s side, smiling carefully down at him.

“Hey, Richie. How you feeling?”

Richie started to reach up to grab Mike’s hand in a kind of manly sedentary hug, but then jerked and found he couldn’t move it. He looked over and, fuck, that was a lot of cast. Richie grinned and turned to Eddie, who was eyeing him carefully.

“Hey, Eddie! I could be Rookie of the Year! Get it?”

Eddie rubbed his forehead, wrinkling the skin back and forth between his fingerpads. Richie just grinned bigger. He loved that fucking look on Eddie’s face. Loved being the one to cause it.

Mike glanced over at Eddie, like he was waiting for him to say something. Eddie sighed and waved dismissively at Richie. “Look, he makes that joke every fucking time he wakes up and sees his arm is in a cast. What am I supposed to do? Laugh every time?”

Something like panic took hold in Richie’s chest and he glanced back and forth between Mike and Eddie. “What?” But Eddie wasn’t panicking. If there was something wrong—something _medically_ wrong—with Richie, then Eddie would be panicking, right? But Eddie was cool as a particularly attractive cucumber. He wasn’t worried. If Eddie wasn’t worried, there couldn’t be anything to worry about. Right? Still. “What do you mean every time?”

“It’s the drugs,” Eddie explained. “They’ve been lowering your dose. Once they hit a certain threshold you’ll get your short-term memory back.”

“For better or for worse!” Richie joked, because what else was there to do besides joke?

“For better, definitely for better,” Eddie grumbled. “If I have to hear that Rookie of the Year joke one more fucking time-”

“You said Steve’s coming?”

Eddie had the good sense at least to look mildly shame-faced.

“Yeah, I…” he hesitated, put his hands on his hips. Glanced over to Mike like for moral support or something. Then he sighed and ducked his head, peering up at Richie from under his eyebrows. “I might’ve. Well. He’s coming.”

“That’s great,” Richie said, automatically, because Steve was great. Always had his shit together, always had _Richie’s_ shit together. He was kind of like… Oh. Right.

Oh, no. Richie had to warn him.

“Eddie, Eds, uh, Steve. He… Okay, well, how do I explain this…”

Eddie frowned, waiting.

“Look, uh… Have you two talked? No wait okay you talked you said you talked. Do you…”

Maybe Eddie wouldn’t notice? That Richie had gone and attached himself to another short, manic, Type-A gorgeous little brunet asshole who would take care of him?

Richie stared at Eddie and wondered how to explain that there was a hole in his heart since he’d left Derry and that hole was Eddie’s exact shape and size without getting into. _Everything_. That that entailed.

Then Richie fell asleep and well, okay, that was one way to get out of a conversation.

* * *

The funny thing about anesthesia and the Good Drugs and Extreme Physical Trauma is, you don’t remember most of it. Anterograde amnesia is a hell of a funny thing. So one day Richie returned to consciousness mid-conversation with Eddie, blinked at him, and then stared down at himself.

“Holy fuck, what did I do?”

Eddie, who had just been smiling at Richie, immediately switched into hypochondriac Doctor K mode. He circled around to Richie’s bedside—his left side, oh holy shit, because Richie’s entire right arm was slung up in a cast past his shoulder?? Richie waggled it experimentally, and couldn’t, duh. He laughed and looked over at Eddie.

“Haha, hey, maybe if I get lucky I could be-”

“-Rookie of the Year,” Eddie sighed, settling into the chair by Richie’s left. He smiled tightly. “You make that joke every time.”

Richie grinned. “At least I’m consistent.”

“We saw that together, you know,” Eddie whispered. He smiled tightly at Richie. “I haven’t told you that any of the other times.”

“Why not?”

Eddie searched his face. “I think you might remember it this time?”

Richie felt like he was going to remember it, Eddie was right. But he was pretty sure he’d felt like this every other time, too.

A yawn cracked Richie’s jaw, and he made puppy dog eyes at Eddie. “Eds: I think I’m going to fall asleep.”

Eddie shrugged and put his feet up on Richie’s bed. Richie goggled. The audacity! The germs! He loved it.

“Fall asleep. I’ll be here to not laugh at your bad Rookie of the Year joke when you wake up.”

“Where’s everyone else?” Richie asked, even though he was sure he already had, every time.

“Alive. Dealing with their shit. Bev’s talking to divorce lawyers. Bill’s booking flights back out to Vancouver to get back to his wife and movie set, but he’s trying to put it off until you at least remember something for more than thirty minutes.”

Richie grinned even as his eyes fell closed. They were like heavy… brass balls. No, that didn’t make sense, that was from his Glenn Garry the robot-fucker bit… Richie yawned and found he couldn’t open his eyes.

“Tell him not to stay for little ol’ me,” Richie managed to get out in his worst southern belle. He wasn’t even sure he _did_ an accent, just that he’d _meant_ to.

Eddie might have said something funny back, but Richie was already asleep.

* * *

When he woke up again, Eddie was still there.

And Richie _remembered_ , this time.

Eddie was pacing in front of the window, texting furiously on his phone. Richie grinned as he watched Eddie mouth what he was typing, occasionally saying a completely random word out loud, like _taptaptaptap_ “ _-never_ -” _taptaptaptap_ “- _perfectly adequate_ -” _taptaptaptap_ -

Who the fuck typed “perfectly adequate” in a text?

Richie beamed at the crazy asshole and snapped his fingers. Eddie’s head jerked up, expression cycling through surprised and worried and excited and cautious all in quick succession.

“Hey, look at this, what am I, Rookie-”

Eddie groaned and tilted his head back, but Richie broke immediately and started laughing. Eddie’s head whipped back up, shock smoothing out his features until it wrapped right back around to _freaking right out_.

“Holy shit! You remember?”

“Remember what? Who are you? Where am I? What are these black frames at sides of my eyes…”

Eddie leapt forward, hand darting out to, ha, _what_ : hit Richie in his excitement? Luckily Eddie managed to reign himself in, though where he stood by Richie’s bedside he was kind of hopping from foot to foot, clutching his phone in his hand.

“Holy shit, it’s been two _weeks_ of this shit, Richie. This is the first time you’ve remembered.”

“Two _weeks_?!” Richie swallowed, looking around to take in the state of himself with a more serious eye. His arm, okay, they’d already run that joke into the ground. But he had an IV in his “good” arm, his left, and that was attached to all sorts of bags. A heart monitor was attached to his finger, as well as electrodes stuck to his chest, and, fucking hell, a blood pressure cuff on his bicep? How much more shit could they stick on his only working arm? And then there was… Gingerly Richie maneuvered his wired-up arm to lift the blankets and chanced a glance under the sheets.

Yeah, that was a catheter.

Richie turned green and let the blanket fall back down. Okay. Try not to think about _that_.

“You remember last time you were awake?” Eddie asked.

Richie shrugged. “Five seconds’ worth. I tried to make a Rookie of the Year joke, you said everyone else was fine, and I basically fell asleep before you got through number three on that list.”

“But you remember,” Eddie repeated. “That’s a hell of a lot better than any other time.”

Then Eddie looked down at his phone and turned about as green as Richie had when he clocked the status of his urethra. Eddie grabbed Richie’s good arm—which was still all wired up with IVs and junk, but better than the cast—and bent down.

“Hey, so okay, look, I’ve been using your phone to keep everyone informed that needed to be, so they didn’t think you fucking died or file a missing person’s report or something-”

Richie laughed. “Yeah, Steve would do that. You tell Steve? He’s the only one who needs to know-”

“Shut the fuck up and listen,” Eddie hissed. “It’s about Steve. We’ve been talking and, look, we all had shitty taste in friends and family when the fucking clown made us forget-”

“Clown whammied,” Richie agreed. “Like an episode of Buffy.”

“- _I goaded him into coming here and he’s in a fucking Uber outside_.”

Oh, Richie should warn him.

“I’m his _manager,_ I’m pretty sure I’m listed as his _next of kin_ , so whoever you’ve been letting in here is _way_ more inappropriate than I am-”

And there was Steve.

Richie pulled a face and stared as Eddie and Steve squared up as tall as the little bastards could and looked each other in the eye for the first time.

“So you’re the nutcase who’s been stalking my client?” was the first thing Steve said. He hurried over to Richie’s side, looking him over toe to receding hairline. “You okay, Richie? This guy bothering you?”

“That’s Eddie,” Richie explained, because explaining Eddie to Steve ranked higher than even making a “uh have you _seen_ me?” joke. “And yeah I’m real peachy. Ready to pitch for the Mets, just get this cast off me.”

“He pitched for the Cubs,” Eddie interjected. Steve glanced back at him and Eddie smirked.

See? Bet Eddie was grateful to hear Richie’s same, terrible joke a hundred times _now_ , since it gave him an advantage over Steve.

“What the fuck, okay, who cares,” Steve mumbled, turning back to Richie. “So I’ve never heard of an Eddie before, okay Richie?”

“He’s my best friend,” Richie explained, with only the slightest insecure glance back to Eddie. Because they were, back in middle school. Back when they were Losers together. Eddie, bless his little heart, shot Richie a reassuring smile. Thank shit.

“Best friend? Richie, I’ve known you fifteen years-”

“I know, I know, but we grew up together. There was some shit, we couldn’t stay in contact, it sucked.”

Fucking hell, how much was Richie going to have to explain to Steve? How much had _Eddie_ explained to Steve? There must be a cover story for his injuries, right? No way they dragged Richie’s near-dead ass into the Derry hospital and said “yeah a giant space clown spider impaled him with one of his claws patch him up, please?” Neibolt house. They must have said something about Neibolt house collapsing on him. Accident in the sub-basement of a derelict building. That would make sense.

“Whatever.” Steve shook his head, deprioritizing Richie’s newly expanded friendship circle. He gestured at Richie. “At least you’re actually fucking injured; we can release a statement and get the tour pushed, it’s all damage control. At least you’re not in fucking rehab, Christ, those rumors are already out there…” Steve was typing away rapidly on his phone. After a moment he gestured at Richie. “Alright, smile, you idiot. Need to get this on social.”

Richie automatically started to smile but before Steve could snap the picture Eddie jumped between them.

“Whoa whoa whoa! What are you doing?”

Steve glared at Eddie. “Posting a picture of this idiot to his Instagram and then sending it off to TMZ so everyone knows Richie didn’t cancel his tour just because he fell off the wagon. Again.”

Richie winced, kind of relieved he couldn’t see Eddie’s expression at that. But Eddie crossed his arms and stayed between Richie and Steve.

“Doesn’t he deserve some privacy? He got his short-term memory back like six hours ago. He can barely _consent_ to-”

“Eddie, Eds.” Richie couldn’t reach out and tug at Eddie’s arm, because Richie’s arm was in a fucking cast up past his _shoulder_ , but Eddie turned back to look at him like he had. “It’s alright. If you’d had left my phone within reach I probably would’ve done it already, as a gag.”

Eddie looked like he wanted to argue (did Richie even know what Eddie looked like otherwise? Was there such a thing as an Eddie that didn’t look like he was about to grab a stepstool and throw hands?), but he stepped back so Steve could snap the pic.

“Do hashtag unbreakable!” Richie ordered Steve, snickering.

“This is literally the opposite of unbreakable,” Eddie pointed out. He waved manically at the length of Richie’s body. “You are _extremely_ broken, what the fuck are you even saying.”

“It’s the drugs, clearly,” Richie cooed.

“It’s not the fucking drugs you’re always exactly this much of a dumbass,” Eddie shot back.

“Fuck, you two really are friends,” Steve muttered, even as he tapped away at Richie’s phone. “There, posted.” He looked up from the phone and squinted at Richie. “How the fuck am I supposed to get you back to LA like this? We could charter a jet, but, fuck, you _did_ just cancel your twenty-sixteen tour…”

Eddie stepped forward, chopping his hands in a nixing motion. “Uh, excuse me? You’re going to move him?”

“Eddie, I’m not an invalid.” Richie glanced down at the sheets that he knew hid a catheter currently shoved up his ho-boy. “Well. In like, another few days I won’t be.”

“Your entire arm and shoulder were crushed by-” Eddie hesitated, eyes sliding over to Steve, “-that derelict house collapsing on you.”

“Well okay, maybe I temporarily lost my primo jacking-off hand, but other than that…”

Eddie whirled back on Steve, jabbing a finger at him. “Who’s going to take care of him? Who’s going to cook and measure out his pain pills and change his dressings?”

Steve was already tapping away at his own phone, Richie’s tucked into his slacks’ pocket for now. “I’m booking an in-home nurse now.” He glanced up at Eddie, smirking meanly at him. “Or are you going to say you’re qualified for the job?”

Eddie pulled up short, fuming. Richie sighed and wished he could reach his hand out to touch him, but Eddie was insisting on standing by his right side, the dick.

“You can’t trust those people; I’ve heard horror stories-”

“I’m not hiring someone off fucking Craigslist,” Steve sneered. “We have networks for these sorts of things.”

“For when the talent gets crushed by a house?”

“Crashing their latest sportscar, jumping off the Santa Ana pier high as a kite, celebrity fight club, you name it,” Steve sighed.

Eddie glanced back at Richie. “Is there really a celebrity fight club?”

“Ironically, Ed Norton kicked Brad Pitt’s total ass,” Richie deadpanned. “He’s scrappy, but vicious.”

Kind of like someone else he knew. Richie smiled, dopy, at Eddie, before he remembered Steve was in the room. Shit, he was seeing double in vicious little runts. It was like his every collegiate wet dream.

Eddie fell silent, maybe sensing he was out of his league. Helplessly Richie waggled his fingers at Eddie, until he gave in and ordered: “Eddie. Swing around to my good side, will ya?”

Eddie looked startled but obeyed, and then Richie had the ability to grab Eddie’s wrist reassuringly like he’d wanted to for the last five minutes.

“Hey. I’ll be alright. Steve may act like he’s the tin man in search of a heart, but he’s kept me alive so far.”

“Not like you’ve made it easy,” Steve muttered, not looking up from his phone.

Eddie hesitated, searching Richie’s expression. Then he looked back at Steve: “Excuse me, now that you know I’m not keeping him prisoner here Misery-style, could you give us a minute?”

Steve rolled his eyes but started to leave. Before he turned away fully he grabbed Richie’s phone out of his pocket and tossed it at Eddie, who barely had the good reflexes to catch it. Not that it would have mattered—Richie’s giant Garfield phone case made his phone Nokia-indestructible.

“Don’t post anything he wouldn’t post,” Steve ordered as the door shut behind him. Eddie cupped the phone in his hands as he stared after him.

“I don’t think I even _could_ …” Eddie mused.

Richie grinned up at Eddie. He grabbed his wrist again and shook it lightly.

“You know, I’d hug you if I could.” He’d do a lot _more_ than that, if he _could_ , if Eddie would’ve _let_ him (if Eddie wasn’t married. If Eddie wasn’t straight…).

Eddie grinned and snatched his wrist back from Richie, just so he could shove him (gently, gently) in his good shoulder. “That’s the drugs talking.”

“Dick! I’m having a heartfelt moment over here and you’re giving credit to sweet father Oxy. What’s a guy gotta do…”

“Alright, alright,” Eddie gave in. Then he frowned, eyebrows drawing together in that funny little worried line like they used to do when they were kids. He jerked his head back at the door Steve had just left through. “Sorry, for, uh…” Eddie rubbed the back of his head and then threw his thumb towards the door. “That guy really pisses me off?”

Richie laughed so hard he thought he would pull his stitches (did he have stitches? He just realized he had _no_ idea what was going on with his body or what his prognosis was. Now that his memory was coming back he’d have to have a sit down with Doctor K. Or an actual doctor might be good, too. Not _as_ good, but…).

“He’s just looking out for me.” Richie poked at Eddie’s arm. “ _You_ of all people should know what a heart-attack inducing job that is. He’s got no energy left to be polite.”

Eddie snorted. Then his expression fell.

“I guess I shouldn’t have taken over like I did. It was just… instinct.”

“What are you talking about? Of course you did. I wouldn’t have expected any less from Doctor K.”

“When we were twelve. But now, I know I’ve got no right-”

Richie just barely stopped himself from telling Eddie that he had every right in the world, that he had the whole right, that Richie would sign his life over to Eddie if he could, stamped sealed and notarized if he could.

“I don’t like the thought of you back in LA with no one.”

“I’ve got Steve. And he’ll hire someone good: there really are networks for shit like this.”

“I don’t trust them. Whoever they are. Even if their last job was mopping up Natalie Portman’s cocaine nose blood.”

“She’s got a kid; she’s not doing cocaine. It’s amphetamines, baaabbyy, for those celebrity moms. Besides, I’m not pulling in Natalie Portman’s tier of in-home help. More like Chris Fleming-level private nurses.”

“Who’s that?”

Richie sighed. “Yeah. Exactly.”

“What if…” Eddie stopped. He glanced back at the door, like he thought Steve would be listening. He turned back to Richie, eyes a little frantic. “What if I made sure you were okay? Just for a while.”

“You’ve got a wife to get back to. A job. A life.” He grinned, or at least tried to manage something resembling one. “You can’t take care of me forever, Eddie.”

“Don’t have the wife so much anymore,” Eddie admitted, sheepish. Richie’s heart leapt in his throat, but he tamped down on all those impossible hopes, because he was nothing if not a pessimist.

“Shit,” was the most eloquent thing he could think to say.

“Yeah. I just… when I _remembered_ , when I remembered who I was when I was with you guys, who I could be, I couldn’t… not be him, anymore.”

“If you feel like it’s the right move then I support the shit out of you,” Richie told Eddie. He fumbled for him with his good hand, through the wires and the heart monitor on his finger and whatever the fuck else. Eddie closed the distance for him, letting Richie fold his hand into his own. His smile was a little wobbly as he glanced up at Richie.

“Thanks, Richie. That means a lot.”

“But you still got a job, right? A life, in NYC?”

Eddie sighed, shook his head. “Look, nothing that can’t be done anywhere. And I don’t fucking- you need me.” When Richie opened his mouth to protest, Eddie shook his hand lightly. “And I need this. Call it my midlife crisis.”

Richie had kind of been hoping Eddie’s midlife crisis would be manifestly more sexual in nature, but hey: any midlife crisis that resulted in Eddie _moving in_ with Richie was a fucking win in his books, gay sex or no gay sex.

* * *

“No fucking way,” Steve declared, not even looking up from his phone.

Richie snorted, and before Eddie could launch into a truly _epic_ rant, Richie pointed out: “Last time I checked you’re my manager, not my mom.”

“Last time you checked?” Steve mused. “When exactly was that? Was that when you were puking your guts out before a show and then bombed on the first joke? And then dropped off the face of the earth for two weeks? You know what kind of clean-up it’s been out there? People thought you fucking OD’d. People think you’re in rehab. I’ve been trying to spin it as a fucking mental health thing, getting some bad news from a tragedy back in your hometown. And now I have to announce that you had a fucking house collapse on you and somehow make sure nobody asks too many questions about the two in conjunction with each other. Tell me about how I’m not your fucking mom again?”

“I was his mom first!” Eddie declared. And then stopped. Richie and Steve stared at Eddie like the fucking madman he was as Eddie seemed to shrink into himself, face turning more and more red.

“You’re such a fucking head case,” Richie announced, barely holding back the _I love you, I love you so much_ ’s that fought desperately in the back of his throat to bookend the statement.

Eddie sighed and put his hands on his hips, staring at the ceiling. “I mean-”

“I know what you mean, and hey, who’s the talent here, _Steve_ ,” Richie declared.

Steve leveled him with his shittiest look and it only made Richie grin broader. Oh, right: now he knew why he loved that look. Now he _remembered_ why he was always trying to get Steve to make it. Fucking beautiful.

“You’re not paying him,” Steve announced.

“I’ve got plenty of fucking money,” Eddie sneered. “I’m not here to take Richie for his hard-earned dick-joke fortune.”

“Heh, _hard_ earned, shit, I could do something with that.”

Eddie and Steve both shot Richie a _look_ like “the adults are talking” kind of _look_ and, oh man, now he was getting that look in _stereo_.

Oh man, speaking of _hard_ : once he got this catheter out he was in for a world of problems trying to not pitch tents like a fucking thirteen year old at every sassy look that was going to get thrown his way.

Steve pursed his lips and looked Eddie up and down. Eddie didn’t know it, but Richie did: they’d won. Steve was going to go along with it, because it was easier than trying to fight it.

 _Title of his sex tape_ , oh shit, that was pretty dark, actually…

“When did you two idiots meet? Grade school?”

Eddie crossed his arms, and now him and Steve were in an arms-crossed hands-on-his-hips stand-off.

Richie nearly rang the nurse to come take this catheter out right _now_ because oh _man_ he wanted to be able to enjoy this without fear of irreparable damage to his urethra.

“Seven years old. It was me, Richie, Bill Denbrough, and Stanley Uris.”

“Isn’t Denbrough some… he does horror movies, right?”

“Books, but yeah.”

“Books are just spec scrips for movies,” Steve snarked. He plowed on: “When’d you guys lose touch?”

“College,” Eddie admitted. He glanced over at Richie as they tried to psychically figure out their story together. Turns out they weren’t psychic, apparently, but Eddie plowed on anyways. “Richie moved to Chicago and my mom had a lot of issues. She never passed along any letters or phone calls from him. I thought he just never called, he thought I was ignoring him.”

Richie’s heart _hurt_ , because they hadn’t talked about it yet: how Richie had moved away first, how Eddie _must_ have thought that, for a little while, before he fucked off to college and the fucking space clown stole his memories, too. Richie rubbed his chest.

“So, what? Reunion and you guys reconnect?”

“One of our friends tried to kill himself.” Eddie’s eyes slid over to Richie’s. “Near miss, thank fuck.”

Stan was alive? _Stan was alive?!_ Richie could hear his heart rate jump on the monitor, but hopefully Steve didn’t notice. He schooled his face to appropriate somberness. He needed his phone. _Stan was alive_!! Oh thank _fuck_ , Richie was going to grab his stupid fucking Jew face and plant a smack straight on the mouth, how was Stan _alive_?!

“That was the phone call before his set,” Eddie continued. “That’s why Richie was so shaken.”

The other Losers must have gone over this while Richie was out. Hell, Richie might have gone over this with them, for all he could remember. It was a decent cover story.

“So you guys came back here and what? Dropped a fucking building on your heads?” Steve asked.

“Yeah, it was a meeting place when we were kids.” Eddie laughed that fake, stupid laugh of his that didn’t fool anybody. “Stupid idea, of course that place had thirty more years of decaying done since the last time we’d met.”

“And _some_ of us had grown since high school,” Richie pointed out. He jeered at Eddie. “Not _all_ of us, but…”

“Really, Richie,” Eddie grumbled, but it was good natured. He gestured to Richie. “But, yeah. This fucking lumbering giant must have bumped into the wrong support beam and next thing you know…”

“You’re a bunch of fucking idiots,” Steve muttered, but he was tapping at his phone. “Okay, well. It’s stupid, but it’s also kind of sweet, and Richie could use more sentimentality on his record. Came back to reunite with his high school sweethearts for a friend in need, great.”

Richie opened his mouth to protest that Eddie wasn’t his sweetheart before he realized it was a joke, it was just a funny little joke. Ha-ha. Steve was still tapping furiously at his phone.

“Well good fucking news for you, Kevin James needs his jet back in LA so he’s letting you fly it back for him for a song.”

Richie groused. “Why the fuck didn’t he fly it back himself?”

“Because he hitched a ride with Adam Sandler on his jet while they were making Grown Daddy fifteen, why the fuck do you think? He’s got friends. Unlike _some_ comedians…”

Okay, point. He was actually surprised Kevin was even letting him be in his jet after the fucking disaster that was Daddy Diaper Duty II: Double Deuces. Richie was _really_ lucky everyone in comedy had their own bullshit to worry about and were willing to look the other way when you got caught sniffing coke off some twinkie grip’s erection.

Steve deserved a fucking raise, fuck. Richie was going to have to get someone—someone other than Steve—to look at his books, because whatever he was paying Steve wasn’t enough.

Eddie coughed lightly. “Okay, and…?”

Steve squared up, looking Eddie up and down. Fuck, were they the same height down to the inch? Richie’s subconscious really was a star, _it_ deserved its own raise, damn.

“I think you’re in this for the money and you’re going to be sorely disappointed when you find out this moron blows through most his paychecks on stupid video game shit.”

“Check my bank account, asshole: I’m a risk analyst with no hobbies and great health insurance. I’ve probably got more in my IRAs than Richie’s got in his fucking savings.”

“Jokes on you,” Richie piped up, “I have _no_ savings.”

Eddie glanced over at him like _you fucking moron, you fucking idiot, why am I even friends with you, the adults are speaking, Richie_. Richie fucking loved it.

And that’s how, three days later, Richie found himself sitting on a private, lightly-used jet with two of his most favorite and disturbingly similar people in his life.

* * *

Eddie was full-out sleeping on the jet, laid out and tucked under blankets (fresh from the pack, he’d insisted) with noise-canceling headphones and an eye mask firmly on. Richie kind of suspected he’d popped some pills as they were boarding, too, but that was something he’d deal with later.

Steve slipped into the seat facing Richie, expression on his face one Richie knew all-too-well. Richie sighed and tried to slouch, but he couldn’t really with his entire shoulder and right arm immobilized in a cast. He opted for kind of listing to his left side to express his displeasure with whatever “serious business time, Rich,” talk Steve was about to give him.

“What.”

Steve patted Richie’s knee and pulled out his tablet. Oh great. It was TMZ headline time.

“Serious business time, Rich,” Steve started, and Richie rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. Steve spun the tablet around for Richie to see, and of course it was on the TMZ website, incredibly unflattering photo from Richie’s last show on one side, blurry shot of him in the hospital on the other. Eddie was in the photo, too—Richie snatched the tablet from Steve with his left hand, scrolling furiously.

“What the fuck? Does Eddie know?”

The article thought it was Steve. Oh. Of _course_ the article thought it was Steve. _Richie Tozier recuperates in a small-town Maine hospital while his manager…_

“This isn’t about your latest fuck-boy,” Steve hissed. Richie choked, shoving the tablet back in Steve’s lap as he tried to gesture furiously for _shutting the fuck up, Steve_. Richie jerked sideways, trying to glance over his shoulder, man, _fuck this cast_.

But Eddie was still asleep, dead to the world. Richie turned back to Steve with a glare. Steve, the utter fucking bastard, was raising his eyebrows right to his receding hairline (like Richie was one to talk).

“Oh. Okay, well, that’s _another_ conversation, Rich. But more importantly than your nonexistent love-life is your soon-to-be nonexistent career.” Steve held the tablet up again, portion of the text highlighted.

“They think you tried to off yourself, Richie.”

The unsaid _again_ whispered through the space between them, and it took everything Richie had to resist turning back and checking on Eddie again, making sure he hadn’t heard, didn’t know. Richie cast his eyes down, so fucking embarrassed, so fucking…

If it hadn’t been for that _fucking_ clown-

“Okay, well, I didn’t. I actually didn’t, I’ve got five-” Stan was alive! “-six people who can attest to that. I got crushed by an old house. I mean, not my finest hour of decision-making, some may say I had to have a death wish going into that derelict piece of shit in the first place, but definitely no proactive suicide attempts, nope.” Richie wiggled his cast-clad fingers at Steve. “Besides, what the fuck kind of dumbass suicide attempt would get me _this_.”

“There’s a lot of rumors in the wind,” Steve explained. “But people are drawing the obvious conclusion from the only three datapoints they have: you had a fucking breakdown on stage, fell off the face of the planet for four days, and then turned up in a bumfuck Maine hospital, half-dead. It doesn’t look good, Rich.”

“Alright, fuck, yeah, I get it,” Richie muttered. He pushed his glasses up to rub his eyes. “So what do we do? I’ve got the truth on my side.”

Steve actually smiled as he spun the tablet back around to himself. _That_ was what he wanted to hear. Richie had a problem, and Steve had to solve it. There was nothing Steve lived for more. That’s why they actually stuck together as manager and client—Steve could probably do better than Richie, but he’d get bored as fuck managing someone who wasn’t falling apart at the seams every other day. And Richie could probably hire someone more expensive than Steve, but he’d never find someone who genuinely enjoyed mopping up his self-generated slop-pit as Steve did.

“I’ve tipped off some paps for when we touch down in LA-”

Richie groaned. And then straightened up and looked back at Eddie. Fuck, fuck: he should have expected something like this. Or Steve should’ve warned Eddie beforehand—who knew what he had taken before they boarded. Would Eddie be _functional_?

Well, they could always leave him on the plane with an attendant and Steve could send for him later. Kevin James didn’t need the jet for a few more days, anyway.

“You’re going to have to run the gauntlet.”

“Yeah, yeah. Sure.”

“We’re sticking with the house-fell-on-you story?”

Richie glared at Steve. “Well it’s the fucking truth.”

Steve held up his hands. “Just asking. Okay. So you got some bad personal news right before the show. Friend in need. Threw you off. You go back home, and during this adorable middle school reunion, when you’re visiting your old haunts, a fucking house falls on you.”

“That’s the jist of it,” Richie confirmed. Minus one space clown.

“Can we name the friend?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Can we name Eddie?”

“No.”

Eddie wasn’t in a state to consent to that shit right now, and him and Richie hadn’t had a private conversation about it yet, so no. Eddie was off fucking limits.

Steve sighed and rubbed his head. “Well, he can just be your bagman right now, it’s not like you don’t have a history of hiring guys like…” his eyes slid over Richie’s shoulder, where Eddie was still dead to the world.

Richie shuddered at the phrasing his mind provided and didn’t look too hard at it. Couldn’t think about it; not now.

“Think you can manage that?”

“Think you can?” Richie shot back.

Steve shot him a look, like, since-when-do-I-ever- _not_ , and that was fair.

“I can handle that. I’ll crack a Rookie of the Year joke, they’ll eat it up.”

“That’s a shit joke.”

Richie grumbled and tried to slouch, except he couldn’t with his arm up through his shoulder in a cast. Mother fucker. They fell quiet and Steve played with his tablet as Richie stared out the window and wished he had a glass of bourbon to fiddle with. Was still taking pain meds, so couldn’t have one. And Richie wasn’t so fucking badly off that he’d start mixing his meds and booze. Not right now, anyway.

“So… what else doesn’t Eddie know?”

And now Richie would take that bourbon spiked with oxy, thanks, to get out of _this_ fucking conversation. He turned to check on Eddie again before glaring at Steve. Fucking damn he wished he could slouch. Fuck this stupid cast.

“Whatever I decide not to fucking tell him, _Steve_.”

Steve raised his eyebrows, playing with his tablet.

“Well I’m just saying: that’s a lot, Richie. What am I supposed to do: never talk to the guy?”

“Yeah if you wouldn’t mind, that’d be just about perfect, thanks.”

Steve’s eyes flickered up to meet Richie’s.

“You’re having him move in with you and he doesn’t know you’re gay? He’s going to find out, Richie.”

“Why? It’s not like I have anal beads hanging with the stemware.”

“So you’re taking a vow of celibacy, now?”

Richie resisted the urge to look back at Eddie, but it was fucking _hard_. He looked down and away, trying not to print it all over his fucking face, knowing it was anyway, he was a shit fucking actor, it was all always right _there_.

Steve sighed softly. “Richie. You can’t…”

“How about you let me just have this, Steve, okay? Let me have a fucking private life for _one_ thing,” Richie shouted. He waved his arm at the window. “You’re already putting me on fucking display for the paparazzi, shoving my fucking injuries under their microscope to prove, no, Richie Tozier isn’t suicidal, he’s just a colossal fuck up who got a fucking house dropped on him the same week his career died, you want to take a fucking scalpel to my cast, here you go, cut me open, see for yourselves, you fucking vultures. You’re not going to give me this? This one fucking thing, for myself?”

“I’m not making you come out,” Steve hissed. “I don’t want that any more than you do.”

“Thanks a lot, appreciate that.”

“Look, if you wanted to blaze that fucking trail, I’d make it happen,” Steve told him. “It’s _you_ who always refused to even fucking acknowledge it, and we’ve built your brand around that understanding. You want to change course, I’ll dig the fucking Panama Canal of gayness, but not once in fifteen years have you even said the word “gay” non-pejoratively, so you don’t get to have a coming-to-gay moment and act like it’s my fucking fault you’ve spent forty years in the closet.”

“I know that, alright! I know it’s my fucking fault!” Richie shouted.

Eddie was still asleep. Richie groaned and dropped back down into his seat, already sick of being so in love with Eddie, of looking for him, needing him.

He wondered if their initials were still on the kissing bridge. Wanted to go and look, but he couldn’t exactly do it with the state he was in.

Steve stared at Richie, searching his expression. After a moment he lifted both hands to his face and wiped them down, groaning loudly.

“Jesus Christ: you’re in love with him.”

“Say it a little louder, why don’t you.”

“You’re in love with a manic hypochondriac pill-head. He’s going to fucking smother you to death, you know that, right?”

Richie shook his head and couldn’t help but grin, even as his entire brain was screaming with the fear of Steve knowing these things, Steve saying these things, _out loud_ , where it could become real, a part of the world.

“No, he won’t.”

Steve moaned and leaned forward, putting his head between his knees. “Oh my God, you’re moving in with a straight married man you’re in love with. We are so fucked.”

“He’s getting a divorce.”

Steve shot him a withering stare from between his own knees. Richie giggled a little hysterically.

“And he doesn’t know you’re gay.”

Richie squirmed. Steve straightened up.

“Hasn’t he known you since grade school? How hasn’t he figured it out? I knew the first year I started working for you.”

“That’s because the second month of your employment you were already dragging me out of twinks’ beds after a bender and cleaning me up to get to a fucking show.”

“Bribed a fucking cop to get rid of that public indecency charge,” Steve remembered with a groan.

Richie laughed a little manically. Oh, right. The public bathrooms. That was definitely the first year Steve worked for him.

Well: Richie got better. Smarter.

And wasn’t that just the saddest skill to have? Expert closet case, Richie Tozier. He could teach classes, but everyone had to show up like the masked fucking magician. Tuition in non-sequential, unmarked bills only.

“I’m going to come out to them,” Richie whispered.

“Them?”

Because he was. Not today, or tomorrow, but. He’d decided without realizing he’d decided, laying on the operating table, maybe, drifting in and out of the land of the living. He was going to tell them all, in his own time. Because there was no point hiding anymore. The closet made him weak, kept him apart. Kept him scared. That was Pennywise’s greatest trick: the _threat_ of outing him was so much scarier than actually doing it. By keeping them separate, by leaving them to their own traumas and darknesses they didn’t think they could share, didn’t think anyone else could understand, it kept them small. Together they were the lucky seven. Together they could defeat a fucking immortal clown demon from space. They just had to submit to the horrifying ordeal of being known, or whatever the saying was. Him coming out would only make him stronger.

He just. Had to work up the courage, first.

“I just. I gotta do it myself. My way.”

Steve sighed and leaned back in his seat. He shrugged. “Alright, but I’m not responsible for what happens if you keep this to yourself for too long. You’re inviting a married man to live with you and not telling him you’re gay. Just want you to think about that.”

“I got it,” Richie grumbled. But he felt… okay. Not too bad? Not like he was about to puke, at least.

He’d tell Eddie. He _had_ to tell Eddie.

Richie pulled out his phone and tapped painstakingly slowly on it with his left hand. Just… maybe he’d have some trial runs first.

_You doing okay?_

Fifteen minutes later, Richie was dozing against the window when his phone buzzed. Incoming call. Richie picked it up as Steve pushed off from his seat and wandered to the back of the plane to work.

“Stan.”

_“Hey, Richie. You in LA?”_

“Nah, not yet. Still on the jet.”

_“You know how bad private jets are for the environment?”_

Richie snickered. “I’ve got half my body in a fucking cast, look, the environment can give me this much at least.”

_“I don’t think that’s how that works, but okay.”_

Richie fell quiet, staring out the window, watching the clouds go by thousands of feet beneath them. He couldn’t fiddle with anything, he had to keep one hand trained on the phone and his other was fucking useless. He sighed, fidgety energy with nowhere to go.

_“Richie?”_

“How you doing, Stan? You alright?”

_“…yeah. Yeah, I’m okay. … I don’t really want to talk about it, yet.”_

“That’s fair,” Richie agreed. He hesitated. Cleared his throat. “Just. When you are, uh. I… Look, don’t worry about this too much, it was a thousand years ago, but: I can empathize, alright? So. When you want to talk. You could do worse than me.”

_“…Thanks, Richie.”_

Richie blew a breath out noisily. That wasn’t exactly what he’d texted for. Trial runs. Building up to it.

“Okay, look, while I’m on the subject of spilling-my-guts-out confessions, here. So, uh… look, I need you to keep this under your hat, right? I’m going to- Ha, what the fuck am I, an old-timey nineties forty gumshoe? _Keep this under your hat, shee, or I’mma put a bullet in that old melon of yours!_ Anyway, uh, so, I’m telling you first, and I’ll get around to it, with the others, but I… So…”

_“Is this about Eddie moving in with you?”_

Richie laughed manically. “When you say it like _that_ it sounds so _dirty_ , Stan. Cheapens what me and Eddie have, how dare you-”

Stan sighed. _“Richie. Just say it.”_

“I’m gay.”

Richie waited.

He breathed.

The plane didn’t crash.

The world didn’t come roaring down around his ears.

Richie held onto the phone.

He breathed.

Stan spoke.

_“Thanks, Richie. For telling me. I love you.”_

Tears sprung to Richie’s eyes and he couldn’t fucking wipe them away, because of his stupid fucking cast, _fuck_ this broken arm _bullshit_.

“Shit, Stan. Don’t go all sappy on me.”

Stan laughed.

“I love you too,” Richie rushed to say, because Stan needed to hear it. Stan deserved to hear it.

_“I won’t tell anyone.”_

“Thanks, fuck,” Richie muttered. “I’m… I’m going to. I just. You know. Don’t want to get dehydrated, all the fucking crying. Gotta pace myself.”

_“I wouldn’t leave Eddie for last.”_

“Of course I’m going to fucking leave Eddie for last, do you know me _But Not At All_ , Stan?”

_“I know you, Richie. That’s why I said it.”_

“Well I didn’t ask for your advice-”

_“Well you got it, so deal.”_

Richie laughed, knocking his head against the side of the plane. “ _So deal_ , what is this, the aughts? You fucking nerd, Stanley, fuck. When are you and the missus gonna get your asses out to LA so I can give you a noogie in person?”

_“We could do that, Richie. Visit you and Eddie and interrupt your domestic bliss.”_

“Ugh, never mind, offer rescinded, you fucking rot in that shithole Atlanta, Stan.”

_“Richie? I’m proud of you. That had to be hard to say. Mazel Tov.”_

“Don’t you put that Jew curse on me, Stan.”

_“Let me know when you tell Eddie and we’ll send you some housewarming gifts.”_

“Gee-dash-Dee you’re a fucking asshole, why did I forget what a fucking asshole you are?”

_“Get home safe, Richie.”_

“Thanks, Stan. You stay safe. No more close calls. You fucking pick up your phone and you talk to me, any shit like this happens again. Don’t calculate time zones, don’t think about what hour it is, you just fucking call me, okay?”

_“Okay, Richie. It’ll be okay. The worst is over. Right?”_

Richie glanced over his shoulder, back to where Eddie was sleeping away. Steve was sitting across the aisle from him, tap-tap-tapping away at his laptop, doing whatever the fuck it was he did.

“All over but the crying.”

_“There’s no crying in baseball, Richie.”_

And then Stan hung up, because the fucker had to have the last laugh, and prove he was funnier than Richie could ever hope to be. Richie smiled down at his phone. He blinked away the last of his tears as he took a deep, shuddering breath and looked out the window at the great, bright world outside. Okay. Okay. One day at a time, as the drunks say.

* * *

It was fifteen minutes to wheels down and Richie couldn’t give Eddie any more time. Richie sighed as he awkwardly maneuvered himself over to the back of the plane. Eddie was fully stretched out in the sleeper seats, which meant Richie couldn’t sit across from him. Looking probably about as awkward as a newborn giraffe, Richie lowered himself down, left hand gripping desperately to the arm of Eddie’s chair, one leg bending at a time. He angled his cast arm until it was tucked alongside Eddie’s chair, not sticking directly in his face.

“Eds? Hey. Eddie.” Richie shook Eddie lightly. “Hey man, I’m sorry. Eddie.”

Dude was sleeping like the fucking dead, great. Richie reached up and removed Eddie’s headphones and eye mask as gently as he could with one hand. Eddie, bless his tiny, angry heart, slept on.

“Eddie? Eddie, wake up. Eds.” Richie shook Eddie harder, voice raising in volume. “Eddie. Eddie. Eddie, wake up. Wake up. Eddie. Eddie. _Eds_. _Eddie. Edward Kaspbrak!_ ”

Blearily Eddie opened his eyes, blinking sluggish. Richie swore to himself and turned to look for an attendant, and Steve was already there, pressing a cup of coffee into Richie’s searching hand. He backed away immediately, making himself scarce at the other end of the plane. Good old Steve.

“Eddie, wake up, drink this, come on.”

“Wha-”

“Eddie, we gotta get you up. Get up. Go, pee, chug this coffee, let’s go.”

At least Eddie seemed to know how to follow orders (Richie put that aside to worry about for another day). He stumbled out of his blanket cocoon and wandered to the back of the plane, trailing one of the blankets down the aisle with him. Steve popped up again once Eddie was in the bathroom to grab the blankets and pass them off to an attendant, as well as place another cup of coffee in the armrest of Eddie’s chair. He tilted it back up into sitting position just as the door to the bathroom reopened.

“Thanks,” Richie murmured. His and Steve’s eyes met and Richie couldn’t figure out what was going on, there. Didn’t have time to worry about it because Eddie was stumbling back into his seat and looking around in a daze.

“Fuck, Eddie,” Richie muttered. “What’d you take.”

“Three alprazolam,” Eddie replied automatically.

(Like he was used to having to regurgitate exactly what pills he’d taken. Richie swallowed down that same fear that had bubbled up when Eddie sleepwalked through following his orders. Later, later).

“Drink this,” Richie ordered, shoving the coffee into his hand. Eddie drank it, swaying on his feet, and handed the coffee cup back. He then collapsed into his chair, blinking around slowly. Richie pulled the second cup out of the arm holder and handed it to him. Eddie sipped at this one more slowly as he fought to keep his eyes open.

“What the fuck, Eds,” Richie muttered, trying to clock Eddie’s pupils and wondering what the fuck they were supposed to do with him. Have Steve send a separate Uber for him and ask one of the attendants to deposit him safely inside once Richie and Steve were gone, paparazzi temporarily mollified.

“Scared,” Eddie slurred. He worked his mouth, smacked his tongue around. He shook his head, trying to physically shake off the Xanax. “Small private planes. Not commercial. Higher risk.”

Richie reached out and ran a hand through Eddie’s hair, cupped his cheek, without thinking. Eddie leaned into the touch, eyes fighting to stay open.

“For Christ’s sake, Eds. You should have told me.”

“Best way to get you back,” he mumbled. He was drifting off against Richie’s hand. Richie gently patted his cheek.

“Eddie? Wake up, Eddie, we got to-”

“Okay. Okay!”

Eddie jumped up from the chair and… started doing jumping-jacks in the middle of the plane aisle. Steve, who had been heading back to them with two more cups of coffee in both hand, stopped and watched this with an ever-growing look of concern blossoming across his face.

Oh no. Eddie was so fucking stupid.

Richie watched him do a series of violent stretches side to side, twisting his waist, jumping in place, and all Richie could do was grin and grin and grin.

“Coffee?” Steve asked, once Eddie was standing relatively still, just doing arm stretches from side to side.

“Yeah, thanks. You got a pot or is this Keurig single-serve?”

“It’s a pot,” Steve said, passing one cup off to Eddie. He downed it in one.

“Great, here, show me it, I’ll just drink the pot.”

Richie stumbled over himself, knocking his cast into the arm of a chair in his haste.

“Uh, Eds, is that really a good idea?”

“I mean, I’ll have to shit myself later, but there’s going to be like, cameras at LAX, right? You don’t need the bad presh.” Eddie stopped. Moved his mouth around. “Presh. Press. _Preeeess_.” He looked back at Richie even as he lifted the pot of coffee to his mouth. “Maybe don’t let me do any of the talking.”

“It’s okay. That’s my job,” Richie replied in a daze, watching as Eddie just. Housed a fucking pot of coffee in front of him.

If he didn’t still have Oxy in his system Richie swore he would have popped a boner right there.

Fuck, Steve was right: this was a _baaaaad_ idea, Eddie moving in with Richie, Richie not coming out to him. Even if they didn’t get to the “big gay crush since we were like, ten,” conversation (which they would _never_ : not if Richie had any say in it), Richie needed to tell Eddie the face of it. If only so Eddie wouldn’t like, wander around naked in front of Richie after he showered, or something.

Unless Richie kept his big fucking mouth shut, and then _Eddie wandered around naked in front of Richie after he showered_.

Richie shook his head and pushed the visual from his mind. Focus. Eddie was high as a fucking skunk and about to try to get past LA’s most vicious gossipmongers.

Except Eddie was back at his seat, changing into a fresh shirt and jacket, putting his shoes back on. Eddie glanced up at Richie. “You got any sunglasses?”

“Here you go.” Steve held out a pair he had ready. Eddie glanced up at him from where he was tying his shoes.

“Thanks.”

Richie watched the interaction like he was going to have to bring out the spray bottle. But then Eddie shoved the glasses on his face and Steve turned back to whatever the hell he was doing and they both moved on with their lives.

Maybe this _wasn’t_ going to be a total disaster.

* * *

The paparazzi were in Richie’s face. He knew they were supposed to be in his face, of course. He just wished they weren’t so. In his face.

He resisted the urge to look behind him, knowing that Eddie was managing their luggage (actually, only Eddie’s luggage: Richie just had his under-stuffed duffle and it was slung across his chest. But the paps didn’t know that) and hiding behind the façade of the overlooked service class.

Richie waved his cast back and forth gamely, laughing as he had to twist most his body just to make the gesture.

“Well folks, the good news is the doctor finally agreed to my elective surgery: to make me the best baseball pitcher the sport has ever seen.”

Some of the paps laughed at that. Most of them snapped pictures and fired questions at him, unrelentingly.

“Did you try and kill yourself, Richie?”

“Have you been having problems at home, Tozier?”

“How are you feeling, Richie?”

“Did you have a breakdown, Richie?”

“What happened with your show, Trashmouth?”

Steve pretended to elbow his way between Richie and the paparazzi, shouting: “Okay, okay, you’ve seen him, my client has had a very long flight-” but Richie brushed him aside, exactly how they always did it, and smiled for the cameras.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he announced. He gestured at his cast with his left hand. “You shoulda seen the ex that did this: word of advice, guys? Don’t date MMA chicks, I mean, _fuck_!”

Another tittering of somewhat-amused laughter, before the questions started again. Richie rolled his eyes and cut them off.

“But seriously, guys: I got some bad news about an old friend right before my Chicago show. I’m sorry I disappointed my fans, but it left me real shook up. Luckily my friend is fine, doing a lot better now. Unluckily the witches’ curse that bound us together meant that when I rushed to his side, he sucked the life force from me and I ended up with his injuries, the dick.”

Barely-amused laughter. Richie knocked on the cast.

“Nah, I’m kidding. Yeah, went home, met up with my old friends from high school, looking after each other. We decided to visit one of our old haunts, an abandoned house, and of course me ended up knocking around inside like Andre the Giant in a Russian tea room. Knocked the fucking building down on top of me, ended up with this.”

He grinned big at the cameras.

“Thank God it didn’t fuck up my face, right?”

“Richie!”

“Richie Tozier!”

“Richie, who was your friend?”

“Tozier, what happened in Maine?”

“Trashmouth, what about the rest of your tour?”

Now Steve pushed to the front, for real this time, waving his hands at the paps. “Alright, vultures, you got your pound of flesh. The _Taking Out the Trash_ tour is suspended until further notice; all tickets will either be refunded or will receive a voucher for an upcoming show. See the website for further details. Richie?” Steve turned around, nodding at the car that was waiting for them on the tarmac.

Richie nodded, glancing _just_ barely backwards to make sure Eddie was still following them. He was, glasses on, face expressionless. Dude was a pro. Actually, he kind of looked like a sexy, svelte bodyguard.

Hm. There’s one for the spank bank. Eddie as his bodyguard…

They all made it to the car without incident. Richie let Steve grab Eddie’s luggage, because it’d be suspicious if Richie helped with it. He lingered by the door, just half a second, to make sure Eddie got to his okay. Then they were in the back of the car, and Steve was in the front, and Richie breathed, _finally_.

Eddie collapsed against the back seat, swearing loudly.

“Can you tell I’m high?” Eddie asked, taking off his glasses. He grabbed Richie’s cast and levered himself up, trying to look Richie in the eye. “Can you tell?”

Richie laughed, reaching over himself to shove Eddie off him.

“Well I can now, you fucking druggy, because you’re asking me if I can tell.” He smoothed down Eddie’s hair awkwardly with his left hand. Why’d Eddie have to get on his right side? “You did great. Now we’re just gonna land at my place and hide out for… three months, or whatever. You’ll have plenty of time to sleep it off.”

“Great, okay, great,” Eddie muttered. He leaned heavily against the car door, but his eyes were wide open, and he twitched and fidgeted incessantly. The little tweaker.


	2. There Can Be Only One

Eddie stumbled into Richie’s kitchen the next morning looking worse for wear. He was wearing workout clothes, though: some sweatpants, a running shirt, sneakers, and a hoodie he was pulling shut with his hands in its pockets but not actually zipped closed. His hair was ungelled and he had an entirely undignified cowlick from sleeping.

Richie stared at him, coffee mug in hand, and realized just how inexorably _fucked_ he was.

“Morning, Eds.”

“What the fuck are you doing awake,” Eddie mumbled, shoving past Richie for the coffee pot. It was a Keurig, which made Eddie swear and grumble to himself as he picked through Richie’s assortment of K-cups, looking for one that would meet whatever highly specific criteria Eddie had for coffee.

Richie leaned against the counter, probably too close, probably invading Eddie’s personal space. But Eddie didn’t make him move away, or take a step back himself. Richie swayed towards him, smiling mindlessly.

“I never thought I’d be the morning person out of the two of us.”

 _Beep beep, Richie_. That sounded a lot like they were a couple. That they were a unit, Richie-and-Eddie. They weren’t that, of course. They were just… roommates.

“I’ll get back into it. I just need to adjust to the fucking timezone change,” Eddie grumbled, finally finding a k-cup to his liking and sticking it in the Keurig.

“We’re three hours _behind_ Maine. It’s like noon, there.”

“Shhhhh.”

Eddie tipped his head back, eyes closed, as he leaned against the kitchen counter with Richie and waited for his coffee to pour. Richie took the opportunity to look his fill, eyes drinking in every inch of detail about Eddie’s ruffled, unguarded self.

Eddie opened his eyes. Richie wasn’t sure _what_ expression he tried to school his features into, but he tried. _Something_.

“I was going to go for a run. What do you need before I head out?”

Richie looked around, shrugging. “I’m fucking… good? I think?”

“Shower?”

Richie grinned toothily. “Oh, Eddie, my love-”

Eddie rolled his eyes. “Yeah right, you fucking reek. Hospital, then seven-hour plane ride? No one’s interested in that. I meant like, you need me to wrap up your arm or whatever so you can get in there yourself.”

“I can do it while you’re out.”

Eddie gave him a look like he didn’t believe him. Which, okay.

“If I can’t manage it, I promise you can wrap me up when you get back from your run, okay, nugget?”

“Perfect, chucklehead,” Eddie smirked back. He sipped at his coffee and sighed blissfully. Richie had to stop himself from leaning in for a kiss.

Maybe Steve was right and this was all a very, very bad idea. Or maybe he was right that Richie needed to _tell_ Eddie, sooner rather than later. But maybe Steve was right all the damn time, and maybe it was _Richie’s_ turn to be right, for once, okay? Maybe Richie deserved that, huh? Ever think of _that_?

Richie was wandering out of his garage, a roll of duct tape in his left hand and A Plan in mind when he heard the pitter-patter of familiar, undersized feet. He rounded the corner to his kitchen to find Steve peering in the fridge and muttering to himself.

“Steve, baby, my favorite half pint.”

“Will you be around this afternoon for a grocery delivery? I do have other clients to manage.”

“Sure.” Richie tossed the duct tape onto the kitchen island as went to rummaging through his cabinet for some saran wrap.

“So I’ve got the rest of your tour canceled but we need to book some podcast appearances, radio bits, that sort of thing to make sure everyone remembers you’re alive and doesn’t resent you for canceling on them.”

“Didn’t our stunt at LAX do that?” Richie whined, mostly to have something to whine about.

“No.” Steve watched as Richie tried to start saran-wrapping his own arm, one-handed. “So whose podcast do you want to be on? Anyone in particular, or am I going to have to book you with Karen and Chris on DYNAR?”

Richie eyed his cast. “I don’t think I’d fit in whatever little ass sedan they’re driving around in these days. Isn’t it a fucking Kia?”

“Don’t remember. Well, brainstorm it and get back with me tonight. I’ll send over my preliminary list and we can come together.”

“Oh yeah, I love it when we come together,” Richie teased, doing a little shimmy. Steve’s eyes flicked up to meet his.

“Save that for your live-in boy-toy.”

Richie sputtered and fell silent. For once. …Dick.

They were standing by the wet bar, Steve wrapping Richie’s cast in saran wrap as they argued about the definite ‘no’s’ from potential comedian podcasts when the front door opened and shut, Eddie jogging listlessly into the main room.

“Hey, Eds.”

Eddie stopped in the space that was neither kitchen nor living room, the no-man’s land of the open floor plan. He stared between Richie and Steve, eyes finally landing on where Steve was wrapping Richie’s arm and settling there. A muscle in his jaw jumped like he was going to get into a fight. Richie frowned.

When he finally said something it was completely innocent: “I was going to shower, but I can wait-”

Richie shook his head. “Nah, go ahead. Water heater in this place is _way_ oversized: we can both take a shower _and_ run the jacuzzi and you wouldn’t even notice it.”

But instead of heading off, Eddie stood there for a second longer, eyes darting between Richie and Steve. Richie grinned and nodded at Steve.

“See? Told you I could manage without you.”

Steve snorted. “Right, and I’m just your fifth limb.”

“Fourth, right now, since I’m down a limb,” Richie pointed out. He turned and grinned at Eddie, waiting for Eddie to grin back.

“Fifth, because I was including your dick,” Steve shot back.

Richie laughed, too loud and too fast. But it was funny as _shit_ : Steve didn’t usually have witty comebacks like that. That was more Eddie’ thing.

Eddie waited a beat too long before he giggled this terrible, forced laugh that Richie hadn’t heard him make since the fucking clown had been terrorizing them.

“Okay so.” Eddie’s voice was way too high. Richie cocked his head at him, wondering why the hell Eddie’s voice was so high. “I’ll shower, then. Uh… I was going to get lunch, after, for you, do you want lunch? What’s around here? I can do some research-”

“Grocery delivery is coming between three and five,” Steve said, not looking up from wrapping Richie’s arm. He held out a hand and Richie dutifully passed him one of the pre-cut strips of duct tape Steve had prepared.

“Right…” Eddie murmured. He was still standing awkwardly between-rooms. “Uh. Well, before that. I’ll be… I’ll be hungry before that…”

“Take your shower, Eddie,” Richie told him. “I’ll bust out the menus, don’t worry, I know there’s a drawer of them around here somewhere.”

“It’s a folder on your phone labeled ‘food,’” Steve explained. He patted Richie’s cast once, then stepped back, head tilted. “Okay, I think that does it.”

Richie grinned as he checked out his ridiculous, saran-wrapped and duct-taped shoulder-and-arm-cast. It looked like a giant, condom-clad dick. Richie giggled and turned to tell Eddie- but Eddie was gone. Richie frowned. Must be off showering. He did _tell_ him to go shower.

“Okay, I’m out,” Steve said, eyes glued to his phone. “You got this?”

“We got this,” Richie confirmed. “Go, go deal with your more interesting clients.”

“Alright. Just give me a call if you need me,” Steve muttered, still staring at his phone as let himself out.

Richie stared down at his arm. Well. It would still look like a condom after he showered. Richie could bother Eddie with it then.

* * *

Eddie was eating an omelet when Richie padded out to the kitchen the next morning. His fucking cast was starting to get itchy as _hell_. There wasn’t even a way to thread an itching stick into it, because he was wrapped all the way up to his shoulder. And there was a spot around his elbow he’d fucking murder _another_ magic space clown to get itched, damn.

“When the fuck do I downsize this body cast?”

Eddie set down his phone and stared off into the middle distance. “I can’t even imagine how annoying you’d be in a body cast.”

Richie snorted as he started rummaging through his pantry for some cereal.

“I made you an omelet, too,” Eddie said. “If you want it.”

Richie glanced over his shoulder and saw a dish, covered and warming on the stove.

“You’re not going to get me to eat healthy,” Richie promised, even as he hurried over to enjoy some omelet-y goodness.

Eddie snorted. “Who would even try?”

“Steve’s been trying for years.”

“Steve probably shits kale salads,” Eddie snorted. Richie giggled with him. He wasn’t wrong. Richie set his plate down next to Eddie’s at the wet bar, then went to grab syrup out of the fridge. As he poured it onto his omelet Eddie set his fork down and watched him, peculiar look smoothing out his features in soft wonder.

“I forgot you did that.”

“You forgot everything about me,” Richie reminded him.

“Yeah, but… I forgot that. Until just now. Fuck, you used to drive me _crazy_ doing that.”

“What about now?”

After a moment’s smiling contemplation, Eddie picked up his fork, reached over and cut himself off a tidy little triangle of syrup-drenched omelet. He put it in his mouth and chewed, expression open and curious. Then he grabbed his water and drank a heaping gulp of it, face scrunched up in disgust.

“Fuck, you’re going to get diabetes. I fucking swear, dude-”

Richie laughed as Eddie returned to eating his own, syrup-less omelet. His loss.

“And you have an appointment in three weeks to downsize your cast.”

Richie groaned, but at least there was an end in sight. Eddie slid his phone between them, scrolling through a tab on his calendar app. The category was simply labeled “Richie.”

“So we’ve got three weeks is your first cast downsize. Another three weeks after that and you should be down to a sling, and they’re going to assess whether you need additional reconstructive surgeries.” He shot Richie an apologetic look. “You might. Especially in your shoulder. It was basically pulverized. You’ve got a plate in there, now, but…”

Richie nudged his good shoulder gently into Eddie. “Hey: I’m alive, right? Take the whole arm, I don’t care. You got me out of there. That’s what matters.”

“Well, Ben did most the carrying-”

Richie frowned over at his cast. “And actually, this is my jerking-off arm, they better not take it-”

Eddie rolled his eyes and turned back to his omelet.

Then he said: “Guess that means things aren’t working out with my mom, huh?”

Fierce joy overwhelmed Richie as he laughed, Eddie’s face wrinkling up at a job well done. Richie slung his arm around Eddie’s shoulders and pulled him in, pressing his nose to Eddie’s hair as he laughed.

Fuck, Richie loved him. He loved him as a kid and he loved him more every day he got to know _this_ guy, the adult he’d become. Maybe that was because they all kind of were the kids they once were: preserved in amber over thirty years, waiting for them to come back and find themselves.

“I know beggars can’t be choosers, but your house fucking sucks, dude.”

Richie snorted. “Well fuck-you-very-much.”

“There’s no fucking doors! It’s the open floor plan from hell!”

“There’s doors on your bedroom. And the bathrooms.”

Eddie gestured around to the room they were in, the kitchen-slash-living room-slash-library-slash-solarium.

“I mean, yeah,” Richie laughed. “In my defense, I didn’t pick it out.”

Eddie frowned at him. “You… Didn’t pick out… your house?”

“Nah. Buddy need to sell fast and I had the cash. I was still living in an apartment.”

“You had cash for this place but you were living in an apartment?”

Richie shrugged. “Didn’t really care. Apartment means landlord deals with all the problems. House means I gotta figure out how to like… do plumbing, or whatever.”

“Oh, you do your own plumbing, huh?”

“Okay, so I call a guy.”

“You call a guy?”

“Okay, so _Steve_ calls a guy.”

“Is that why there’s like, no furniture in this place?”

“What? There’s furniture. What do you think you’re sitting on?”

“A stool at a wet bar because there’s no kitchen table, Richie.”

Huh. Richie had… never thought of that.

“…It was pre-fab. I think I just brought my mattress. The couch is mine? I mean, I bought it. I think?”

Eddie giggled into his plate. “You’re a fucking disaster, you know that?”

“Okay ex _cuse_ me, who got _high_ before going out in front of the paparazzi, huh?”

Eddie shrugged. “I’m not the first in this town.”

“Well you’re not wrong about that.”

While Eddie was cleaning up the dishes (Richie couldn’t help! He was _disabled_!), Richie rummaged around in his “home office” until he found what he was looking for: a fistful of various colored Sharpies. He scattered them across the wet bar counter, sorting through them for a minute before settling on a fat purple one. He was just snapping a photo of his handiwork when Eddie came over, peering over his shoulder.

“Aw, hey. Don’t do that.”

 _LOSER_ was scrawled across the forearm of his cast, in sloppy uppercase letters (he was working with his left hand: it wasn’t going to be his tidiest script). Richie grinned as he opened up Instagram and started typing up some stupid caption.

“What? Why not? If it was good enough for Eddie K-”

“I didn’t put it on there _myself_ ,” Eddie sighed. He rummaged through the Sharpies until he found a red one. “Give me that.”

Carefully, tongue poking out of his mouth as he concentrated, Eddie scrawled a “V” over the “S”, drawing the vertical lines over and over again so they nearly obscured any lines of the S beneath them. Richie stared, overwhelmed by Eddie’s closeness, by the fresh, clean morning shower smell of him, by the little sliver of tongue poking out between pink lips.

Oh, boy.

“There,” Eddie said, stepping back to admire his handiwork. “Upload _that_.”

Richie snapped a picture of it, but then pointedly set his phone down. Eddie stared at him, waiting.

“Well I can’t upload it right _after_ the first one. Gotta space my social media posts out. Maximum engagement.”

Eddie rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. “Fucking celebrities.”

“You’re telling me.”

Later, after Richie and Eddie walked through the house and Richie’s routines, trying to figure out which things needed to be one-arm adjusted and which Eddie would just have to do for him (wrapping his arm before the shower was the main one, looked like), Steve let himself in Richie’s house, phone out and typing furiously.

“Alright Richie, I need to go over some tour dates with you. What would you think of kicking off your Reno dates in January and then having the rest follow the same schedule as before?”

Richie opened his mouth to reply, but Eddie was there first, stepping between Richie and Steve.

“Uh, who says he’ll be recovered by then?”

“By January? That’s four months away! He’ll have the cast off by then.”

“There’s further surgeries to consider,” Eddie pointed out. “Not to mention rehabilitation, physical training…”

“He can do his PT on the road, I’ll hire someone if I have to,” Steve waved Eddie’s protests off. He pointed at Richie. “You can do voice work, right? I’ve got an in on a new line-up of Corn Pop commercials, they’ve got a new, edgier mascot they want to introduce and you’d be perfect for it.”

Richie opened his mouth to agree that he could do studio work, but once again Eddie barreled over him.

“Uh, do you even have his appointment calendar? We’ve got doctor’s appointments every week.”

Steve spread his hands, phone cradled in one palm. “Okay, well: you could _give_ it to me. I guess _you’re_ keeping track of Richie’s doctor’s appointments?” Steve’s eyes slid to Richie, a frisson of concern in them. Richie frowned, not sure what _that_ was about.

“I’m not sharing my fucking google calendar with you. That’s my entire life.”

Steve threw his hands up. “What, you think I want to share my google calendar with you? You don’t need Dwayne Johnson’s personal trainer’s home address.”

“Dwayne Johnson _is_ a personal trainer he doesn’t _have_ a trainer-” Eddie started.

“You don’t fucking know that, who are you? Where’d you even come from: bumfuck Maine?”

“I lived in Manhattan, you LA yuppie,” Eddie shot back.

“Look.” Steve put his hands out, eyes closed as he breathed through his nose. Eddie huffed and crossed his arms as he waited. “What if we created a separate google calendar that was just Richie’s bullshit and then shared that with each other? Would that work?”

Eddie thought about it for a few seconds, but of course it was exactly the right solution, so he had no choice but to agree.

“Fine.”

“ _Great_ ,” Steve muttered sarcastically. “Hey, Richie, I’m hitting up Bread and Roses, you want something?”

Richie shrugged. “Yeah, sure, get me whatever. My usual.”

“Eddie?”

Eddie blinked, like he wasn’t expecting to be included in this. Steve waited, tapping his foot.

“Uh… Sure, I mean… What do they have?”

“Sandwiches, salads. It’s a lunch place.”

“It’s vegan,” Richie said, because he knew Eddie wouldn’t know that. Eddie’s entire face wrinkled up.

“Vegan? Uh, what kind of… sandwiches…”

“Richie usually gets their fried tofu BLT.”

“It’s not bad,” Richie assured him.

Eddie sighed. “Alright, fine. Oh, wait: do they have gluten free bread?”

Steve snorted. “What do you think this is, the nineties? All their bread is gluten-free.”

“Get us some sides, though,” Richie ordered Steve. “Something carby. Sweet potato fries or something, whatever they’ve got that’s the least healthy.”

Eddie nodded and pointed at Richie. “Yes, that. That sounds awesome.”

Steve tapped down at his phone and wandered away, muttering something demeaning about the East Coast as he went. Eddie glared after him.

“Is he a vegan?”

“No, but like, half the places in LA are.” Richie patted Eddie on his shoulder. “At least you don’t have to worry about your lactose intolerance?”

* * *

They were laying on the couch one night, eating vegan ice cream, when Eddie finally admitted it.

“Alright: the vegans are good for _something_.”

“You’re going to be the first person to _gain_ weight after moving to LA,” Richie observed.

“There’s so many dairy-free options!” Eddie exclaimed. “And all their bread is gluten free! I can have pizza again!”

“You’re probably not even allergic to anything, you know?”

Eddie snorted. “I’m definitely lactose intolerant, trust me. If this wasn’t dairy-free I’d be destroying your toilet about five minutes from now.”

“Well then I should tell you I switched the labels.”

“No you didn’t.”

“I did, I wanted to prove it’s all in your head, I’m so sorry, Eds. I promise to get Steve to replace the guest bathroom toilet tomorrow after you’ve had your wicked way with it.”

Eddie giggled, listing mindlessly against Richie’s shoulder-clad cast. Richie really wished he was on his _other_ side, where he could _feel_ Eddie leaning against him. But this was good. Hell, maybe this was better. Richie sighed and set his ice cream down on the floor. Eddie grumbled and picked it up, bringing it into the kitchen.

“You don’t even have a coffee table!” Eddie shouted over his shoulder.

“Alright, I get it, I have no furniture! Add ‘furniture shopping’ to your Richie calendar if it bugs you so much!”

Eddie dropped back onto the couch, dumping a handful of Sharpies into Richie’s lap at the same time.

“Already did. We see a man about a kitchen table tomorrow.” He grabbed a Sharpie out of Richie’s lap and uncapped it, scanning Richie’s cast contemplatively. Richie did his best to not think about how Eddie’s hand had just been between his legs, even for just a brief second.

“I want to call bullshit but I’m not sure it is,” Richie said. He picked a Sharpie out of his own lap himself, joining Eddie in doodling on his cast.

“Yeah, I didn’t. But we can.”

“I dunno,” Richie mused. He was drawing stupid happy scenes: flowers, clouds, a tree. He was working left-handed, so he couldn’t exactly recreate detailed sketches of Beevis and Butthead, or something. “I don’t really have a style. Or care about this place. Maybe we should hold off furnishing it until we know we’re going to stick around.”

Richie realized belatedly how many times he said “we” in that sentence. He didn’t look up, concentrating on giving his sun some cool sunglasses. Fuck, fuck.

But Eddie didn’t notice, or didn’t care if he did, because he focused on the big picture: “What, you thinking of selling?”

“Dunno. Not like this place was ever really home. Maybe I should look for somewhere that actually means something to me.” He glanced up, grateful for the low light only the flickering TV was offering. “Now that I know who I am.”

Eddie’s eyes met him, and for a moment there were no words between them. Finally Eddie nodded, eyes sad and serious. “Yeah. Yeah, I get it.” He laughed self-deprecatingly. “I mean, look at me: I moved three thousand miles across the country as soon as I remembered who I was.”

“You’re such a New Yorker, though,” Richie pointed out, easing the tension. He bent his head back to his scribbles. Now he was drawing a Tetris game. “I feel like you belong on the East Coast.”

“I dunno, New York is so high stress.”

“Pot meet kettle.”

“Give me your phone.”

Without question Richie handed over his phone. Eddie had been working on the far side of Richie’s cast, nearly under his armpit, so Richie couldn’t see what he was doing. Now Eddie took a picture of his handiwork, flash on, before passing his phone back to Richie.

Richie collapsed laughing against the back of the couch, phone clutched to his chest.

Eddie had drawn “RiCHiE”… made entirely out of dicks. The dots above the “i”s were jizz squirts.

“That’s going on the ‘gram,” Richie wheezed out, already running through Dick/Richard wordplay in his head for the caption.

* * *

Richie put away the last of the Tupperware of pre-prepped meals Eddie had just finished making them for the week, while Eddie washed the pots and pans. As Richie let the fridge door fall closed he stretched and groaned.

“Okay, all that cooking was sweaty work. I need a shower.”

“Give me ten minutes,” Eddie said without looking away from the sink, “I’ll wrap you up.”

Richie checked his watch and shook his head. “Nah. Steve is coming by soon, so I’ll just make him do it. It’s basically his job.”

Eddie frowned, turning away from the sink to look back at Richie. “Why would you ask Steve when I’m offering right now? He’s your manager, not your nurse.”

“And you are?”

Eddie turned off the faucet. “Well I came out here with the express purpose of keeping your sorry ass together until you can manage on your own again.”

Richie grinned. “What do you have against Steve?”

“Nothing!” Eddie shouted, _way_ too loud. He seemed to hear himself because he waved his hands around. “Really, I don’t! He’s fine!” Again, his voice actually _cracked_ on ‘fine.’ Eddie frowned and modulated his voice. “I don’t have anything against him. I just think, you know, what’s his track record like, keeping your shit together?”

“Pretty fucking good,” Richie pointed out.

“Is it? Your act sucks, you don’t even write your own shit-”

“Hey, it might be a stupid act but it rakes it in, you know?” Richie protested, a little offended. But more for himself or Steve, he couldn’t be sure. Probably for Steve, if he was being honest.

Just then the front door opened and shut, and Steve’s voice floated through the house. “Richie?”

Eddie made a face, and Richie poked an index finger at him. _Play nice_ , the finger said. Eddie glared mightily at Richie and threw his hands up in disgust, turning back to the pots and pans in the sink.

“Steve-o! My favorite manager!”

Steve made a face almost identical to the one Eddie had just made as he strode into the kitchen-slash-living room-slash-solarium.

“I’m your only manager.”

“Exactly!” Richie chirruped. “Hey, wrap me up while you talk. I gotta shower all this cooking sweat off me.”

Steve eyed Eddie suspiciously as he set down two reusable grocery bags full of who knew what and went to the kitchen cabinet for the duct tape and saran wrap.

“He’s making you cook?” Steve asked.

“He’s a glorified taste-tester,” Eddie said without looking up.

Steve hummed in disapproval as he started wrapping Richie’s cast. After a minute he said: “Is that really smart? You don’t want to over-exert yourself.”

“It’s standing around snacking,” Eddie said. He turned now and jabbed the pot scrubber in his hand at Steve. “It’s a lot less exertion than doing voice acting gigs.”

“It was an _interview_ for a gig,” Steve protested.

“He shouldn’t even be _thinking_ about work,” Eddie snapped.

“He shouldn’t even be thinking about _cooking_ ,” Steve shot back. “That’s what _delivery_ is for.” He looked Eddie up and down. “That’s what _you_ were supposed to be for.”

“Hey Eddie,” Richie interrupted. “You mind grabbing my phone? I want to snap a pic of all this meal-prepping for Instagram.”

Eddie grimaced, knowing exactly what Richie was doing. But he dried his hands on a dishtowel and nodded. “Sure. Where is it?”

“In my bedroom, I think.”

When Eddie was gone Richie smacked Steve lightly upside the head.

“Ow! What the hell, Richie.”

“Stop bitching at Eddie. He’s keeping me sane. He gave up his entire life just to keep me company and play nursemaid.”

“Yeah, still extremely suspicious of that,” Steve grumbled. He finished duct-taping Richie’s cast into the saran wrap. “There. Hey, I brought some stuff for you.”

He started going through the canvas totes, pulling various vials and tinctures and snacks out of them and stacking them on the kitchen island.

“CBD restock, plus some edibles. I renewed your card while you were in Maine.”

Richie picked up one of the CBD oil droppers and was looking at the milligrams on the side when Eddie reentered, phone in hand.

“Here, but don’t post my fucking name, I hat- Is that pot?”

“CBD,” Steve corrected him.

Eddie stared between the goodies on the counter and Richie.

“That’s pot.”

Richie grimaced. Right. Eddie was kind of a total square when it came to illicit drugs. Except…

“It’s legal, you know. We’re in California,” Richie pointed out.

“What do you need pot for?”

Steve crossed his arms. “Well it’s a lot healthier than taking pills every night to fall asleep or manage his pain.”

“Are you having trouble sleeping?” Eddie asked Richie, big doe eyes wide with concern.

Richie shook his head. “No. I mean, yeah, but just normal, can’t get comfortable, it’s not anything I was going to bother you with.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you have trouble sleeping?” Eddie complained. “I have melatonin, Lunesta, Ambien; if it’s discomfort that’s keeping you awake we could try Tylenol PM, Lodine, you’ve got your Oxy prescription you’ve barely used-”

“He has a medical marijuana prescription for his anxiety,” Steve explained.

Eddie frowned. “Anxiety? I have Atarax if that’s keeping you from sleeping, or if that’s not strong enough there’s Xanax. We could get you an appointment with a psychiatrist. You could try Buspirone if you’re worried about exacerbating an underlying mood disorder. Have you tried SSRIs before? There’s Lexapro; or if you haven’t reacted well to SSRIs in the past there’s SNRIs like Effexor-”

“The CBD works just fine,” Steve cut in. He looked Eddie up and down. “And it’s healthier than any of those artificial chemicals.”

“CBD is a chemical,” Eddie pointed out.

“CBD is natural? It comes from a plant.”

“Arsenic comes from a plant,” Eddie grumbled.

“Look I know Richie doesn’t want me get into this-”

Richie stared at Steve, wondering what the fuck he was about to say, could Richie clock him with his cast, would that shut him up fast enough-

“-but Richie’s a recovering addict. The moral natural the remedy, the better.”

“How is getting a recovering addict addicted to pot good recovery practices, exactly?” Eddie pressed.

“It’s better than getting him on _opiates_ ,” Steve pointed out. Eddie just rolled his eyes. “Or _benzos_.”

“Melatonin or Tylenol PM is hardly a hard drug.”

“Oxy’s an opiate,” Steve rattled off, ticking it off on his finger. “Xanax is a benzo. You don’t know what other meds he’s on-”

“Actually I do,” Eddie pointed out. Then he shut his mouth and turned, looking at Richie with wide eyes. _Shit_.

Steve’s eyes narrowed. After a long pause he turned to Richie, and, shit. Clever little bastard had already figured it out.

“Look, cupcake,” Richie cooed, left hand out.

“Did you release your medical records to middle school sweetheart over here?”

“In my defense, he was in the hospital with me for like, two weeks, and also he knows all this shit way better than me,” Richie protested.

“You didn’t give him power of attorney, did you?” Steve asked.

Eddie scoffed and Richie shook his head. “No, dude, no. It’s cool. He’s just like, my emergency contact. I just keep putting him down on all the ‘who is ok to share medical info with’ forms, because it’s just easier if he knows everything.”

“Do I need to show you my Roth again?” Eddie snarked. “I’m not after him for his money.”

“Maybe you will be after that acrimonious divorce of yours bleeds you dry,” Steve snapped.

Richie pulled up short. He turned and looked at Eddie, who was glaring _daggers_ at Steve. Fuck, what?

“Eds?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Eddie muttered.

“Dude, you haven’t said anything-”

“Because it’s not your problem,” Eddie assured him. “I’m handling it.”

“I’m not saying you can’t handle it,” Richie explained patiently. “I’m saying I’m here, dude. Even just to vent. Is Myra fucking you over?”

Eddie’s eyes slid sideways. “Can we talk about this later?” _In private_.

Steve smirked smugly at Eddie. “She’s filing a contested divorce. Abandonment, cheating-”

“I didn’t release my records to _you_ ,” Eddie snapped, stalking forward.

“Welcome to the lives of the rich and famous,” Steve told him. “I have to make sure there isn’t anything in the wind that could damage my client. That includes keeping tabs on everyone in his orbit.”

“Did you cheat on Myra?” Richie asked, a little stuck on that point. It wasn’t like it _mattered_ , it wasn’t any of Richie’s _business_ , he just wasn’t sure when Eddie would have had the _time_. Unless it was before Derry? Richie didn’t really imagine Eddie as the cheating type, but…

“I didn’t,” Eddie sighed, sliding a hand over his face. He put both hands on his hips, apparently resigned to having this conversation now, in front of Steve. “She filed for abandonment because I came out here, with you. To be clear, our house is paid off and she has access to all our joint accounts, so she’s taken care of financially. She’s still on my health insurance, for fuck’s sake.”

“How do you still have health insurance?” Steve asked, which Richie hadn’t even thought about.

“I’m remotely training my replacement through the end of the year,” Eddie explained. “Then I’ll have another two months on my employer’s plan before I have to start paying for COBRA, which sucks but I can afford it, and after that I’ll have to get another job…”

“How the fuck have you been working remotely this whole time?”

Eddie looked at Richie, surprised. “I just do it in my room? We don’t spend every hour together, you know.”

Richie didn’t want to press it, but: “But that’s just abandonment. Who’d she think you ran away with?”

Eddie ducked his head and wouldn’t meet Richie’s eyes, mouth drawn into an angry little line. Eventually he crossed his arms over his chest and grumbled: “You.”

“Huh?”

“You, she thinks I’m fucking you.”

Oh, Richie… wanted to talk about this. Wanted to have known this, before right now.

Wanted it to be true, with a desperation that _hurt_ , that he felt like was bleeding through his face, impossible not to see, not to know, immediately. This is why he couldn’t act, this was why, you could always see it, see him, see _everything_.

Steve, God love him, stepped between them, saving Richie’s entire ass (what if his ass didn’t want to be saved? Richie’s knees trembled at the thought). “Richie, I gotta get to my hot yoga class. We on for next Tuesday?”

Whatever it was, Richie was pretty sure Eddie would remember it for him. “Yeah. Absolutely. Good talk.”

Steve didn’t say goodbye to Eddie. Eddie stared after him with a curious look on his face. When the front door shut Eddie turned to Richie and the look morphed into disgust that he laughed through. “Hot yoga?! Does he _know_ how unsanitary that is? Those mats are basically a petri dish. And it’s incredibly unsafe—do you know most hot yoga gym climate control systems are Gerry-rigged to maintain the temperatures they need? The whole thing is basically a tinderbox. A germ-infested tinderbox.”

“What podcast told you that?” Richie asked, heart slowing as the conversation returned back from its brief sojourn in _Here there Be Monsters_ territory to safer waters.

Eddie scowled at Richie for a whole five seconds before throwing up his hands and admitting: “ _30 for 30_ podcast, they did a series on Bikram, the inventor of Bikram yoga and how he’s a sexual abuser and basically a cult leader.”

“So just a light listen,” Richie snorted.

“What?! It was interesting,” Eddie defended himself.

Richie waved his cast at Eddie. “Alright, well. I should shower while I’ve got this on me.”

Eddie stared at Richie as he left, lips parted, like he wanted to say something. But he didn’t.

In the shower, Richie tried to awkwardly jerk himself off with his left hand, flustered and worked up with the idea that someone out there, even if it was Eddie’s mom-wife, thought Richie and Eddie were a couple. Were _fucking_. That Eddie had run away with Richie, across the country, and now they were living together in sin.

But he couldn’t get the rhythm right, or the angle, or pressure, and Richie found himself panting and only half-hard, frustrated and angry with himself that he couldn’t be happy with just two out of three from Eddie.

* * *

Richie had his AirPods in so at least he could have his one good hand free while he talked on the phone. He tossed a stress ball up and caught it as he lay on his back on his bed. At least he could do that left-handed, thank you a childhood of playing center field.

“And where’s Eddie right now?”

“Out shopping for his own groceries because he hates everything Steve stocks my fridge with.”

“Your manager buys your groceries for you?”

“It’s some kind of delivery service,” Richie explained. Then he realized that didn’t make it much better. “And not all the time. I’m an invalid, here!”

“Sure you are,” Bev snorted.

“Come on, help me out. I’ve got _real_ problems.”

“Well, what does it matter if they don’t like each other? Some people just don’t get along,” Bev observed, picking up the thread of their conversation. “Are they causing problems?”

“What problems, I have zero problems,” Richie observed. “Besides an itchy as _fuck_ elbow, but nothing Steve and Eddie kissing and making up would solve.”

“What are they like?”

Richie giggled, tossing and catching the stress ball.

“It’s like watching midget wrestling.”

“ _Richie_.”

“Sorry, sorry: _little people_ wrestling.”

“You’re an ass.”

Richie snickered into his phone. “It’s like a nature documentary. Two king crabs circling each other with their claws raised. Or, no: I guess I’m the one with the giant claw.” Richie knocked on his cast. “It’s like those birds with their mating displays, except when two males are fighting over the same lady bird. All puffed up and circling and _squawking nonstop_.”

“Does that make you the sexy lady bird?”

Richie missed the ball and it knocked him in the eye. Richie swore and sat up, rubbing at his eye.

“Richie?”

“Maybe you’re right. If it’s not hurting anything, what does it matter if they get along?” Richie observed, pointedly steering them back to the main topic.

Of course, it mattered to _him_. He loved Eddie, and he loved Steve—in a very different way, of course. The two guys both mattered a lot to Richie, and had seen Richie through some harrowing, life-threatening situations—again, in very different ways. He wished they would just realize they had more in common than different and start working together. Maybe that was the problem, though: too much in common. Richie got that. He fucking hated every working comedian in LA, in no small part because they were all way too much like Richie himself. Maybe Eddie and Steve were just the same polar ends of a magnet: naturally repelling each other, forever.

“Was Eddie the one who wrote ‘Loser’ on your cast?”

Richie grinned. “Nah. I did that. Eddie was the one who fixed it.”

Over the line, Bev awww’d sickeningly. Richie tried to roll his eyes but found he couldn’t. Instead he was smiling, smiling, unable to force his face into any other expression. He buried his head in a pillow.

“How’s he doing, anyway? Besides fighting with your manager.”

“He’s fine. Good. Why?”

“Well he’s going through a divorce, Richie.”

Right, there was that.

“And he quit his job and moved across the country just to take care of you.”

That, too. Richie… hadn’t really thought about that. Didn’t want to look too closely at it, because of the delusional hope such examinations would cause to blossom in his heart. His body was broken, right now. He didn’t need to add his heart to the list.

“He’s keeping himself busy,” Richie told her. “Setting up doctor’s appointments, bitching about buying me more furniture, house hunting-”

“He’s going to buy a house?!”

“No, for me.”

“…Don’t you _have_ a house?”

“Yeah, but I don’t like it,” Richie admitted. “It’s not like, _mine_ , you know? I bought it because a friend needed to sell. It’s not my style, or whatever.”

“So you and Eddie are buying a house together.”

“Shut it, Marsh. Or is it Hanscom, already?”

“Shut it, Tozier. Or is it Kaspbrak, already?”

Fear clawed at Richie’s throat. The fear that before always meant he had to make a joke, any joke, turn it all into a big laugh, talk about fucking someone’s mom, talk about tits, talk about being gay, fuck, but make it a _joke_ , make it all a joke so none of it was serious.

But that kid was all grown up, now. In a manner of speaking. Or at least trying to.

“Hey, so, speaking of which…”

“Oh? Do I hear wedding bells?”

“Keep this under your hair, Bev, because Eddie doesn’t know…”

Richie drifted off. Bev, sensing the change in tone, let the silence build until she prompted gently:

“Know what, Rich?”

He just had to say it. Like he’d said it to Stan.

“I’m gay.”

A pause, on the line. Richie breathed. It would be okay. Bev wouldn’t have a problem with it; of course she wouldn’t.

“Oh, Richie, sweetie. I love you.”

Richie snorted. “Oh sure, _now_ you tell me. You couldn’t of said something when I was straight?”

Bev ignored his manic attempt at lightening the mood. “Eddie doesn’t know?”

Richie stared at his cast, the word LOVER staring back at him. Fuck, he missed fidgeting. He needed to play with something.

“I’ll tell him,” Richie promised. “You just gotta not blab for me for a bit, okay? I know how you gals love to gossip…”

“Says the Trashmouth,” Bev shot back, but it was kind. “Of course, Richie. And I’m here if you need to talk it through. But you should tell him. Eddie’ll still love you.”

Richie stared at his bedroom ceiling, trying not to think too hard about that, because if he did he’d start crying. “Yeah,” he croaked. He swallowed thickly. “Yeah, I know.”

Bev stayed quiet for a long moment. Then, slowly: “Richie… do you… about Eddie…”

Richie sighed noisily into the phone, and Bev fell silent.

Finally:

“It was him. Since we were ten years old. It’s only been him.”

Bev was quiet, and Richie could practically see her nodding. Then, after just long enough: “Well the good news is, you really can grow up and marry your middle school sweetheart. I’m living proof.”

Richie laughed, and that was just what he needed to hear. Not the hope of it—he had no hope, after all, Eddie was straight, after all, Eddie had married a woman. But the silliness of it, the sweetness. The hope not about marriage and long-held flames but of life working out and finally going their way, now that they were all whole again.

* * *

They were getting out of Richie’s car when it all came to a head. Like a fucking zit. Or Mount Saint Helen.

Eddie had his head in the trunk, pulling some Homegoods bullshit out that they had bought in celebration after Richie’s cast finally, _finally_ got downsized off his shoulder and down to just his bicep and forearm. He still wasn’t really supposed to move his shoulder much—they might have to put some pins in later, apparently—but at least the skin underneath was free and he could _itch it again_. And the plaster they’d replaced his forearm and bicep with seemed like it was an inch thinner than the last time around, so his arm felt ten pounds lighter. Things were looking up.

Until he saw Steve’s face, a fucking thundercloud, waiting inside his front door.

“Steve-oh!” Richie trilled. He slung his good arm around Steve’s shoulder and guided him inside. “You see these new threads I got? Downsizing, baby! It’s all the rage.”

“At least you don’t have dicks all over your arm,” Steve gritted out.

“Don’t worry, I’ll draw some new ones tonight,” Eddie laughed, pushing his way through.

“Yeah, could you _not_ ,” Steve snapped. “He _is_ still a working actor; even if you’re on a six-month vacation, _he’s_ not.”

“His entire act is dick jokes,” Eddie pointed out. “How exactly does doodling on his cast hurt his ‘brand’, exactly?”

“I don’t have time to explain my entire job to you,” Steve said. “Especially now that you’re an hour late, Richie.”

Richie slapped his forehead. Right. The lunch date thing with some indie animation studio producers. They wanted him to do a voice thing. Richie gestured at Steve. “Did you tell them I had a doctor’s appointment? Just tell them it ran long, fucking doctors, you know.”

“Is that what they’re calling _Homegoods_ these days?”

Eddie glanced over at them from the kitchen island. “Was that directed at me?”

“You’re the one with the fucking Homegoods bags, so it wasn’t directed at the cat,” Steve snapped.

“You know what, Steve-”

Richie tried to dance between them. “Hey Eddie, help me fashion a chopstick-straw itching implement for my cast-”

“What, _Eddie_?” Steve sneered, completely ignoring Richie.

“Stop acting like you’re Richie’s friend when you’re his fucking manager, okay? He has real friends.”

“Oh yeah? Well where are they, Eddie, because _you_ sure as hell haven’t been around-”

“Well I am now!” Eddie snapped. “I’m here now, so you can just back the fuck off and leave Richie to me to take care of, because that’s my job, not yours, and I can do it just fine without your fucking vegan BLTs and CBD edibles and goat yoga and whatever the hell other stupid LA homeopathic shit Gwyneth Paltrow posted about on her fucking GOOP blog today.”

“You think you’re better than me?”

Eddie snorted. “I know I am…”

Steve continued like he hadn’t heard that. “You’re a fucking _pill head,_ Eddie.”

Eddie’s face paled. Richie protested weakly. “Steve-”

“No, he fucking is, Richie, and I’m sick of having to put up with it because the great _Eddie Kaspbrak_ has swooped in and become your friend again and you won’t say _shit_ to him just because-”

Panic lanced through Richie’s chest. He stumbled forward, good hand outstretched to stop Steve, to shut him the _fuck_ up. Their eyes met and Steve got it, he pulled back.

“-because you knew each other when you were ten,” Steve finished weakly. He picked up steam again. “But you’re on like six different kinds of meds, Eddie, and more that you don’t fucking need, and you keep trying to get _Richie_ addicted to your bullshit too.”

“It’s medical fucking science, sorry I’m not an anti-vaxxer like half the morons in this town-”

“That’s not it and you fucking know it, Eddie.” Steve jabbed a finger at him. “You’re a hypochondriac little control freak who gets off running someone else’s life.”

“ _Look in the fucking mirror, asshole_!” Eddie shouted.

“Well maybe if you were _good_ at it-” Steve pointed out.

“ _Good_ at it?”

“Yeah, _good_ at it.” Steve repeated. “Maybe if you actually could protect Richie-”

“I take care of him!” Eddie protested. His voice dropped meekly. “I’ve always taken care of him.”

“Well apparently you can’t be trusted to take care of Richie since we’re _in this situation!_ ”

“What the fuck situation is that, huh?” Eddie asked, crossing his arms over his chest. His eyebrows were hairline-high. “Richie living in a big, empty house, with no loved ones, no friends?”

“Hey-” Richie protested, because that wasn’t really _Steve’s_ fault, it was the clown memory whammy.

“I mean the situation where half his _body_ is _broken_. Where my client has to cancel his next _year_ of tours-”

“He’s not a _client_ , Jesus Christ, do you _hear_ yourself?”

“Don’t give me this best friend routine,” Steve snapped. “If you care about him so much, where were you all these years? Where were you when he was getting himself addicted to coke and I had to drag his sorry ass out of Dane Cook’s mansion and into rehab, huh?”

“Fuck, man,” Richie muttered, rubbing a hand over his face. He didn’t need to be reminded of those years, for fuck’s sake.

“I fucking saved his life, man,” Eddie protested. “ _Twice_!”

“You can actually remember a number,” Steve pointed out. “I can’t.”

Eddie took a step back, head hanging down, expression unreadable. Richie didn’t want to read it, didn’t want Eddie to be having it. He shot Steve a _look_ , a _shut the fuck up_ , a _we don’t talk about that shit anymore_ kind of _look_. Steve at least looked rightfully apologetic and backed away, hands up.

“Okay, we need a break. Eddie, come on. Whatever room in this house has doors, let’s go.”

“I hate this fucking house,” Eddie grumbled as he walked past Richie. They headed together for Eddie’s bedroom, because the only rooms that weren’t open-concept were the bathrooms and the bedrooms. Richie closed the door behind Eddie and leaned against it, watching Eddie angrily pace his room. Richie scanned the room subtly, noting all the little Eddie touches that had been added to his previously spartan guest room. A book on the nightstand, a pair of shoes by the edge of the bed. On a short cabinet were wallet, watch… wedding ring. Richie wondered what he’d do with that. If Eddie had an idea already, or was waiting for one to come to him.

“We should tell him about the memory whammy,” Eddie grumbled. “I’m sick of him thinking I’m a shitty friend who abandoned you for twenty years.”

“We can’t tell him about the memory whammy. Or the space-clown.”

“We should, I saved your fucking life.”

“You did,” Richie agreed, placatingly.

“ _Twice_ ,” Eddie pointed out, coming to a stop in front of Richie and holding up two fingers. Richie wanted to close his palm around those fingers, pull Eddie close. Calm him. Instead he smiled, as softly as he knew how (the sort of smile he only knew the feel of because Eddie brought it out in him).

“I know, Eddie. And look, isn’t that what matters? _I’m_ your friend, not Steve.”

Eddie waved a hand and resumed his pacing. “Look I know he got you through a lot, like, drug addiction and whatever, and I appreciate that, but he didn’t drag your bleeding corpse out of a murder house to a hospital. I fucking did that.”

“No,” Richie shook his head slowly. He looked away, swallowed hard. “Just out of a bathroom.”

Eddie stopped in his tracks. His hands fell by his side, expression dropping open. Naked fear crossed his face, like Richie hadn’t seen since Neibolt house. Richie sighed and pushed off the door, pushed past Eddie in his own room. Eddie followed him, turning with him, hands palm-up at his sides, imploring.

“Richie…”

“It’s not… I’m okay, now, right? Don’t worry about me.”

“Fuck, _Richie_ … Did you… Did you get help? Are you… do you have a therapist? Are you on meds?”

“It wasn’t like that, or, I mean, it was-”

_It was because I was gay._

“Richie, I love you, I want to make sure you’re taking care of this-”

“It wasn’t-”

_Am gay. Still._

Richie sighed. Stared at the ceiling.

_But it’s okay, now._

He just needed to tell him.

 _Because I have friends_.

Eddie wouldn’t leave. He _wouldn’t_.

_Because I have family._

“Look it’s… I’m gay.”

Eddie opened his mouth. Then he shut it. Then he opened it quick again: “I’m not the last to know, am I?”

Richie snorted. “No, I think… Bill and Mike don’t know yet. Ben…” he waved his hand back and forth.

“Because you told Bev.”

Richie nodded. “Bev knows.”

“And you told Stan.”

“I told Stan first.”

Eddie’s face darkened. In one quick movement he strode forward and punched Richie in his good shoulder.

“Ow!” Richie complained. “You break the other one and you’ll be the one wiping my ass!”

Then Eddie grappled Richie into a tight, vicious hug. Richie hugged back fiercely—or, as much as he could with one arm. Tears pricked at his eyes as he tried to hold Eddie closer, tighter, and just couldn’t.

Eddie pulled back, and luckily he was looking a little misty-eyed, too, so Richie didn’t have to try and explain himself. Eddie gripped Richie’s good shoulder tightly, shaking him back and forth.

“So, what: my mom wasn’t good enough for you? You had to go out and hunt for some dick?”

Richie shook his head, laughing. Fucking… Eds. _Eddie_.

It was okay. Of course it was okay.

Eddie waggled his finger at him. “But this doesn’t fucking get you out of the other shit! What the fuck, dude. Are you… You okay? Now?”

“I’m okay,” Richie confirmed. “It was just, you know. Closet and career and even though I had Steve, you’re right: I was alone.”

“Richie…”

Richie shook his head, mock-sniffing loudly, except it was genuine, he was just trying to hide the sincerity of the emotion beneath a joke. _Classic Richie_.

“It’s cool, dude. We all were alone. Well, except Stan.”

“Yeah, why the hell did he have his shit together and land a hot wife and a good marriage?”

Richie snorted. “I don’t fucking know.”

Eddie nodded and started to leave his bedroom. But just was Richie was going to follow him Eddie spun back around and jabbed his finger at Richie’s face.

“If you ever feel like that again-”

“I’m not, don’t worry, I’ll tell you-”

“Because I’ve got some alprazolam, venlafaxine, and lorazepam, oh, I think I have some buspirone too, so if you need-”

“Jesus Christ Eds, you know Steve is right and you’ve got a pill problem, right?”

Eddie glowered at Richie as they walked out of his bedroom. “These are all doctor-prescribed.”

“Not an answer, Eddie.”

“Look, we had enough soul-searching revelations today, okay? Mine will keep,” Eddie grumbled.

Steve was still hanging out in the living room slash kitchen, tapping away at his phone. He barely glanced up from it when Richie and Eddie re-entered the room.

“Your little pow-wow done? Can we move on?”

“Steve.” Eddie stepped forward. He stuck out a hand. “Thank you. For taking care of Richie when I wasn’t there.”

Steve glanced down at the hand, like he wasn’t sure what to do with it. Then, gingerly, he reached out and took it. Eddie shook his hand up, once, then released it. Steve seemed flabbergasted.

Internally, Richie did a little happy dance. His two dudes! Getting along! This was going to be the best. All Richie’s fantasies were coming true—except the really dirty ones, but, hey: life needed to retain _some_ of her mystery.

“I’m sorry I didn’t check the joint calendar,” Eddie apologized. “I’ll update my alerts tonight so that I’m notified in the morning of everything Richie is supposed to do that day. Including the career stuff with you.”

Steve drew back, nodding cautiously. “Yeah. Yeah, that’d be good.”

“Do you mind adding locations to all the events you scheduled? Then I can know drive times and my phone can notify me with thirty-minute warnings.”

“Yeah…” Steve said, already making a note of it in his phone. “I can do that.”

Richie beamed and wrapped his left arm around Eddie’s shoulders and gently, gently placed his cast down on Steve’s shoulders.

“My two spark plugs! Playing nice! I’m so proud!”

“If you say threesome I’m moving out,” Eddie threatened him, and Richie nearly choked on his own tongue.

Fucking hell, Eddie. Warn a guy.


	3. Wonder Twin Powers, Activate!

Richie glanced around out of his car, realizing suddenly that Eddie wasn’t driving them back home after the lazy brunch they’d just enjoyed together.

“Yo, Eds: What gives? Why are we heading towards Los Feliz?”

“You’ve got that podcast, remember?”

Richie groaned, banging his head into the car window. “Fuck me.”

“We talked about it last night.”

“Yeah, yeah. I remember now.”

Eddie glanced over at Richie, concerned. “Are you up for it? If you’re too tired we can go home. I’ll have to text Steve…”

And Steve and Eddie were _just_ starting to get along. Richie shook his head. “No dude, no. I’m good, I just forgot.” He yawned. “Swing by a Starbucks drive-thru, would you? We’ll pick some up for everybody, whose is this again?” Not that knowing whose podcast he was doing would help him with the drink order—why the hell did Richie think he would just know some rando comedian’s Starbucks order off the top of his head. That was more…

“I’ll text Steve and ask,” Eddie offered.

The fucking maniac texted while driving, even though it was illegal and even though Mr. Risk-Management should _surely_ know how bad it was.

Eddie carried the drink carrier into the studio, as well as Richie’s bag and whatever else. He passed Richie’s bag over to Steve, as well as one of the cups of coffee. As he turned to greet the hosts with Richie, one of them, a guy named Jeff or Jack or something dumb like that, burst out laughing at the sight of him. Eddie frowned deeply, glancing between Richie and John or Jude or whatever.

“Dude! You got another Steve!”

Eddie whined: “Look I came first, asshole; if anything he got himself another _Eddie_ -”

Richie steered Eddie away from James or Josh or Justin. “Hey, peanut: not the fight to throw down on.”

Eddie frowned at him. “I think I want to fight about that ‘peanut’ nickname.”

Richie’s hand was still on Eddie’s neck. He stroked his thumb over the hair on the back of his neck, subconsciously, unable to pull away even if he had been aware he was doing it. “We can talk about it at home, short stack.”

“That’s definitely a no,” Eddie grumbled, but he was fighting back a grin. Richie winked at him.

And then he pushed his luck, because his Trashmouth could never help it: “Kiss for luck?”

Eddie just laughed and shrugged him off, passing out the rest of the coffees before heading out, leaving Richie in Steve’s caring hands.

Steve kept looking at Richie, and Richie couldn’t meet his eyes. Yeah, yeah. He was fucked. He didn’t need to be reminded every damn day.

* * *

“Cubs are going to go all the way this year, and if you don’t believe me you’re not looking at the numbers.”

“Fucking sabermetrics is basically astrology for dudes who wear baseball caps, don’t give me that shit. The Cubs have pitching but no batters, what are they supposed to do with that? Sox are going to win it all.”

“Wait, what do you have against astrology? What’s your sign?”

“My sign is Astrology Isn’t Real, Dipshit.”

“What’s your Myers-Briggs?”

“ISTJ, why?”

“Uh, Myers-Briggs is astrology for Wall Street douches who think astrology isn’t real.”

“You are so fucking LA.”

“You’re so fucking New York.”

Richie peaked his head around the corner, half expecting to see Steve and Eddie swiping the counter clear as they jumped onto it to start making out. But no, they were just sitting at the bar like two normal humans, bickering over their iPhones and morning Starbucks. Steve had learned Eddie’s Starbucks order at some point and started bringing it by whenever he came.

Thank fuck Steve was straight or Richie would have started getting a little edgy about this whole happy relationship thing.

“You just think the Sox are going to win because you’re New Englanders,” Steve pointed out, getting back to the conversation at hand.

“ _Wild thing…_ ” Richie came in singing, swinging his hips. Eddie turned to look, while Steve stayed hunched over his phone. “ _You make my heart sing_ ,” he continued, sashaying as well as he could with his arm still in a cast. “ _You make everything…_ ” he held out his imaginary mic to Eddie.

Eddie rolled his eyes but leaned forward into the mic. “ _Groovy_ ,” he sang. Richie cheered.

“ _Wild thing uh-huh! Uh-huh!_ ”

“That wasn’t even the Sox,” Eddie pointed out, accent coming out on _Sawks_. “It was Cleveland or some shit.”

“Doesn’t mean you make my heart sing any less,” Richie cooed. He glanced over at Steve, but his manager didn’t react, just scrolled on his phone and sipped at his coffee. Heart in his throat, because he was feeling reckless and warm and like his life was finally falling into place with two manic half pints running it for him, Richie leaned down and pressed a kiss to Eddie’s hair: “And our sign is Pisces, FYI.”

“‘Our’ sign?” Steve asked, reacting at last. He glanced between them as Richie made his way around the wet bar counter to the fridge. “You know getting married doesn’t mean you take each other’s astrological sign, right?”

Richie mock-laughed, not looking at Eddie, don’t look at Eddie, it was all just jokes. “Our birthdays are next to each other.”

“ _Right_ next to each other,” Eddie said. “Sixth and the seventh.”

“That must have been annoying as kids.”

Richie shrugged. “Not really. It meant we got to do a joint birthday.”

“And it meant I got to have a real birthday,” Eddie pointed out. He smiled wistfully. “With a real cake. And games. And ice cream.” He glanced over at Steve and explained. “My mom was overprotective. She wouldn’t let me have sweets.”

“His mom had fucking Munchausen’s by proxy,” Richie grumbled. Eddie made a noise but didn’t actually speak up for her. Shit. That was some progress. Richie wondered if Eddie was seeing a therapist behind his back, too, just like he was still holding down his old job.

Steve pushed up from the wet bar stool, tucking his phone back into his pocket. “Alright, Richie: you’re with me. You need anything?”

Richie looked around, running a hand through hair he definitely hadn’t brushed. “Uh, I don’t think so…” He glanced at Eddie.

“It’s the voice-over work for the Corn Pops commercial.”

“Right! Right.” Richie grinned big at Steve like he totally knew that this whole time. Steve didn’t even blink, just gestured at the front door.

“Good?”

Richie glanced around, patting his pockets. He had his wallet, he had his phone… why did it feel like he was forgetting something? Or forgetting to do something?

Then he locked eyes with Eddie, who smiled and shooed him gently, and he realized why he felt like there was still something left to do. Richie was waiting for his good-bye kiss from Eddie.

Shamefaced, Richie threw a peace sign over his shoulder at Eddie: “Don’t throw any wild parties while I’m gone! Wait until I get back to start the orgy!” and pushed down that feeling of _incompleteness_ that came from walking out the door without a kiss, a hug, a “be safe” and “see you soon” from Eddie.

If Steve noticed, he didn’t say anything.

* * *

“Jason Bourne?”

“Pass.”

“Some new X-Men movie?”

“Pass.”

“Batman vs Superman?”

“Pass.”

“Civil War?”

“Pass.”

Eddie threw himself sideways on the couch in a huff, shoving his feet into Richie’s lap. Richie automatically lifted his hand to them, trying to rub them as well as he could one-handed. He stared hatefully at his stupid fucking cast, elbow itching like _crazy_ , arm twitching with the thought of everything he _could_ be doing, everything he _couldn’t_ because of this torture-trap from hell.

“Dude, you just passed up an X-Man movie and Batman vs Superman. Do I even know you?”

Richie sighed and threw his head back dramatically on the couch. “Look, as much as I’d love to watch Hugh Jackman run around in spandex-”

Eddie giggled at that, and Richie rolled his head sideways on the back of the couch, Eddie gazing up at him, soft smile curling his lips.

“It’s been six weeks in this fucking thing,” Richie pointed out.

Eddie frowned at Richie cast. “What’s that have to do with anything?”

“Rightie is out of commission, Eds, and I don’t need any more reasons to go stir-crazy.”

Eddie’s eyes darted to the side, thinking. Then he looked back, frown still firmly in place. “What?”

“I can’t jerk off!” Richie fumed. “So put on something that’s not hot, muscley-men centric, okay?”

Eddie’s feet dropped out of Richie’s lap, and Richie winced. Brushed his left hand through his hair and thought that was probably too much. Just because Eddie was hypothetically okay with the whole gay thing didn’t mean he wanted to hear about Richie’s sexual preferences. Especially not when the guy had his feet in Richie’s lap.

But then Eddie started laughing, and Richie wished he had decorative pillows he could slap Eddie with.

“Dude.”

“ _Bro_ ,” Richie mocked.

“That sucks.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Eddie eyed up Richie’s left hand. “I mean, have you… _tried_ …”

“Yeah, I tried: turns out I’m extremely homo-dextrous.”

“That’s definitely not the right term.”

“Yeah but it’s the funniest one.”

They settled on Zootopia, because it was a fucking kids’ movie, so there was no risk of Richie getting all horned up.

Except.

Richie and Eddie were sitting straight up against the back of the couch, watching the movie with mouths open wide enough to catch flies.

“Is… Okay Eds, you gotta be my eyes on this one, is…”

“Dude.”

“Is… the fox…”

“Why is everyone so hot?” Eddie whispered.

“Is this a fucking furry movie?” Richie grabbed the remote, pulling up the movie info. “Disney?! This is a Disney movie?!”

“It feels like they _want_ me to want to fuck the fox,” Eddie hissed. “Why is this movie trying to make me fuck a fox, Richie?”

“Thank fuck you see it too, dude. I thought I was going dick-crazy.”

“Well you _are_ a crazy Dick…”

“Badum-tish!”

* * *

One more week. One more week in the fucking cast before he got downsized to a splint. One more week and he _couldn’t stand it anymore_.

God bless Amazon Prime. Richie wondered if he should feel some sort of liberal guilt for the sheer amount of Amazon Prime packages he’d had delivered to him in the last week, in search of the Perfect One. Maybe because of all the cardboard waste? But he recycled it, or Eddie recycled it, same difference. Maybe because of the poor working conditions at Amazon? By ordering more stuff frivolously he was contributing to increasing the hours they had to work?

Whatever, Richie couldn’t find it in himself to care. Not while his arm was driving him. Fucking. _Crazy_.

Richie rushed his latest package into his room, slamming the door shut behind him. He wasn’t sure where Eddie was—if he was out on a run or holed up working in his own room—but Richie had been trying to keep his quest for the Perfect One on the down-low. Not that he was ashamed about it or anything. But Eddie was already doing so much for him, Richie didn’t want to get him involved with a stupid project that didn’t _really_ matter. And of course if Eddie found out about it, that Richie was discomforted in any way, Richie worried that Eddie would take to helping him with the single-minded obsession that Richie loved about him but at the same time Richie felt the need to save Eddie from his own loving instincts. Eddie had done enough for him, and it was Richie’s gift to Eddie to not bother him with something he could figure out himself. If he could just find _The_ One…

Richie ripped open the box and threw it on the ground of his room, where previous attempts lay scattered and abandoned around his bed. None of them had done the job properly: they were too broad, too curved, too short… Richie moaned as he pulled this one out of the box. Looked like just the right length, thin enough, just enough of a curve to slip in and do its job but not enough to keep it from fitting…

Carefully Richie threaded the back scratcher down his cast, from just below his armpit. It fit! Further, further…

Richie collapsed back onto his pillows, moaning like a tomcat in heat. With reckless abandon he moved the backscratcher around in his cast, reaching every inch of his itchy, sweaty elbow. Richie moaned again, tossing his head to the side. “ _Fuck, yes_!” Finally: sweet, sweet relief. And he’d done it all by himself! No need to involve overworked Eddie. Richie was a self-sufficient man who could relieve his most _pressing_ of needs all on his own. Truly, he was growing up.

Richie spent basically the rest of the day in his room, watching Netflix and scratching every inch of his arm beneath the cast. An entire layer of skin would probably come off with the cast when they peeled him out of it in a week, but whatever, it was fucking worth it.

When he stumbled out of his room for dinner he was wild-haired and glassy eyed, legs like jelly and shoulders slouched with the zen of relaxation he hadn’t felt for weeks. Eddie was in the kitchen, preparing dinner and with a classic rock station absolutely _blasting_. Richie frowned. Eddie didn’t play music that much—said he couldn’t hear himself think.

Sneaking up on tip-toe, Richie angled his cast away (just in case Eddie got _really_ jumpy) and slipped his left arm around Eddie’s waist. He put on a gravely voice, like Clint Eastwood after three packs of cigarettes and a pint of cheap whiskey.

“Take me to famed comedian Richie Tozier. I’m going to kidnap him and make a fortune.”

Eddie jumped when Richie’s hand landed on his waist but recovered quickly. He leaned back into Richie, small mean smile quirking the corners of his mouth. Richie studied that face, never able to satisfy his eyes with enough hours spent contemplating every nuance of it. “Too bad for you: no one’s gonna pay a dime for that loser.”

“Loser for life,” Richie murmured, lips dangerously close to Eddie’s ear.

They both seemed to realize what an intimate position they were in at the same time. Eddie started to shift away and Richie jerked back, releasing Eddie from his embrace. Richie placed himself at the end of the counter, as far away as he could get from Eddie without making it awkward, while Eddie searched around mindlessly for… apparently nothing, because eventually he stopped looking and just stood there in front of the stove, smiling weakly at Richie.

“Productive afternoon?” Richie asked, just for something to say.

Eddie coughed and blushed. “Uh… yeah, uh. Just. Getting work done. In my room.” His voice cracked. Richie wondered what he wasn’t telling him. Maybe something to do with Myra, with the divorce? Richie wished Eddie would open up to him more about it. But maybe it was awkward for him: maybe there was a lot of bullshit getting flung about Richie and Eddie being a couple, in Myra’s mind, and Eddie didn’t want to bring that up. Especially since Richie was _actually_ gay. Probably didn’t know how to bring it up, if Richie would be comfortable with it.

Discomfort or not, Richie wanted to tell Eddie that of course he’d listen to him bitch about his divorce. Or his work, or anything. Richie had spent a childhood listening to Eddie bitch about everything under the sun, and it was _basically_ how he fell in love with Eddie. Nothing about that was any different now: if anything the feeling was stronger.

Eddie nodded at him. “You… too?”

That was a weird question. Richie was _never_ productive. Especially if he was just lazing around the house. Eddie knew better than anyone except Steve _exactly_ when Richie was being productive these days, because he was a) basically Richie’s personal chauffeur, and b) had Richie’s entire life schedule on his phone. So Richie snorted and joked:

“Oh yeah: I finally binged _Making a Murderer_ on Netflix. You know: I think that guy totally did it?”

Eddie’s eyes widened in delight. “Oh seriously? Because yes, he _absolutely_ did it, I don’t know how everyone is coming away from the series thinking he’s innocent?”

“Like maybe the kid got roped into some stuff he didn’t do-”

“Oh yeah, I don’t know what’s going on with the nephew, if he was involved it’s because he didn’t understand and was just going along with what the uncle was telling him to do-”

“Yeah, but Avery? The uncle?”

“ _Absolutely_ murdered that woman.”

“ _Without question_.”

Richie and Eddie beamed at each other, awkwardness melted away in a minute. But then Eddie shifted, eyes sliding from Richie’s back to the stove, where dinner was cooking. He poked at the stir fry with a spoon for a moment before glancing back at Richie. Forced-casually, he said:

“I, uh. I guess you solved your problem? This afternoon?”

How the hell did Eddie know about that? Richie had been _so_ careful to keep it a secret, too! Then again, Richie had given Eddie his Amazon Prime password (looks like Myra got that in the divorce) while they were living together and told him to order whatever he wanted. Maybe Eddie had seen the order history and figured things out himself. Richie didn’t think Eddie was snooping, or anything, but if he had gone into order history to check the tracking on a package of his own or something it would have been easy to put two and two together—or rather, put one and one and one together until it added up to a half dozen backscratchers ordered in the last two weeks. Eddie was clever like that.

“Oh, yeah, I did. Finally.”

Eddie wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Well, good. Glad to hear it.” Eddie choked on his own spit, face turning read. “Not that- I mean, I _heard_ , I- Look, it’s your house- I mean, it’s not- I wasn’t-”

“Want to see the winner?”

“What?!”

Richie was already jogging away, back into his bedroom to grab his new favorite purchase courtesy god Bezos himself. When he came back Eddie was standing helplessly in the middle of the room, like he had started to run away, then remembered he had food cooking, then started to run again… Eddie’s expression morphed from terror to confusion as Richie waggled the backscratcher at him.

“See! Took a lot more tries than that slut Goldilocks, but I finally found one that was Just Right!”

“A backscratcher?” Eddie was frowning deeply at it, whole face pulled down in adorable frown lines. Richie loved to make Eddie smile and laugh but his frown was almost as adorable. Richie waggled the backscratcher at Eddie and he leapt backwards, making a noise of disgust.

“What? Afraid of getting cast-funk on you? That’s fair, it’s probably nasty down there.” Richie sniffed at the end of the backscratcher and made a face. Oh yeah. That was ripe.

“Cast…” Eddie’s face light up, sigh of _momentous_ relief escaping him. He started laughing with a tough of hysteria, running one hand through his hair. “Your cast! Itching! You were itching your cast!”

Richie frowned. “Yeah. What did-”

Problem. Solved the problem. The moaning. The shut bedroom door.

Richie turned to Eddie, smile splitting his face wide. Eddie started to back up. He knew that fucking look.

“You thought I was jerking off?”

“No, I didn’t- I never said-”

“You were listening to me jerk off all afternoon?”

“No. No! I was listening to you scratch yourself!”

“You _thought_ you were listening to me jerk off.”

Eddie’s eyes were wide and somewhat frantic. Richie stepped forward, pushing his advantage, fucking _delighted_ beyond words by how flustered Eddie was.

“You were _listening_.”

“I fucking wasn’t.”

“Did you like the show?” Richie purred, taking another step into Eddie’s personal space.

“There wasn’t a fucking show-”

“Did it get you all hot and bothered?”

“The food is going to burn.”

Richie’s heart thudded in his chest. He’d just been fucking around, just been teasing Eddie. But now they were practically chest to chest, breathing each other’s exhales, and Eddie’s eyes were meeting his, big brown doe eyes all full of fight and flight, and Richie wanted to whisper _which is it, which are you going to pick, Eds? Fight or flight?_

“The food’s burning,” Eddie said again. And he turned away, back to the stove.

Richie leaned heavily against the wet bar and stared at Eddie’s back.

What the fuck was _that_?

* * *

They were piling out of Richie’s car, Richie itching his newly-exposed skin and moaning loudly while Eddie grimaced the whole drive home.

“I swear I’m not doing this to fuck with you, it just feels _so good_ ,” Richie moaned.

He still had an air cast on, wrapping up his hand to his elbow, but his bicep was free, and he could reach a hundred times more of his skin than he could before. And his shoulder was semi-immobilized in a sling, because he was expected to take it off to do physical therapy twice a day—which of course _Herr Kaspbrak_ would make him do, religiously—but fuck yes, Richie would take it, take all of it, just to be out of that cast.

Steve’s car was in the driveway, and never had Richie been so grateful to have him as a buffer between himself and Eddie. Richie hopped out of the car, jarring his arm in the process and causing him to groan and shuffle down the driveway, arm curled protectively into his chest.

“The sling is because you’re _supposed_ to keep it immobile anytime you’re not doing your PT,” Eddie pointed out. Richie yapped his left hand at him, pulling a face.

“Yes Nurse Ratchet, right away Nurse Ratchet, want me to bend over and cough, Nurse Ratchet?”

Somewhere behind him Eddie muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, “ _I’ll_ bend you over…”, but even as Richie tripped over his own feet trying to turn around and _see_ Eddie, he stumbled through his front door and Steve was there, shoving Richie aside to assail Eddie with questions.

“Well? What’s the verdict?”

“PT for the next year,” Eddie rattled off, “Another month with the air cast and sling, but he can take his arm out of the sling twice a day when he’s doing his PT.”

“What about surgery?” Steve was looking at Richie’s air cast, turning his head this way and that in lieu of actually grabbing hold of Richie’s arm and twisting it around for a thorough examination.

“None.”

Steve slapped his hands together and did a little victory wiggle.

“The plate they put in there is doing what it’s supposed to do, they don’t need to put more pins in like they thought. There’s a chance that in a year if he doesn’t regain full mobility through PT he might need some, but they want to wait and see on that.”

Richie waggled his fingers at Steve. He started singing: “Put me in coach! I’m ready to play, today…”

Steve turned to Eddie with a grin on his face. “Speaking of which: Cubs are in it.”

“Cubs are going to choke just like they always do,” Eddie griped.

“Hundred years. Be a good time to break the curse…” Steve pointed out. Eddie stuck a finger out at him.

“Until someone brings a fucking goat onto Wrigley Field and makes it prom queen they’re never going to break that curse,” Eddie swore.

“Maybe they’ve got some help this year,” Richie speculated. He pointed up at the sky significantly. “You know. From on high…”

Steve didn’t get it, but Eddie did. He snorted: “Why, did you send up a prayer that if the Cubs win your dad’ll come back into your life?”

Richie waggled his eyebrows and crowded in closer to Eddie. “No, but if they win can I get a kiss?”

“You should send your angels to help out the Indians, because the only way I’d be happy enough to make out with your spilled Play-Dough of a face is if the Cubs lose.”

Richie made the mistake of glancing down at Eddie’s lips, but he couldn’t help it, could he? Eddie’s tongue darted out to lick his lips and Richie felt like his heart was going to pound right out of his chest.

“Did you add his PT schedule to the calendar?” Steve asked, and the moment was over. Richie shook himself and stepped away. What was going _on_ with them? Was Eddie gay? Was Eddie getting into this? Or was it that thing, what it was called, from _Back to the Future_ , where Marty’s mom fell in love with him-slash-his dad because she was playing nursemaid to them. Maybe Eddie was just Stockholm’d into being into Richie. He was going through a divorce, he hadn’t had sex in at least two months, and the only person he spent any real time with was Richie. Well, and Steve, but Steve was straight.

Speaking of which, Steve and Eddie were huddled over their phones, comparing calendars as they planned out the next six months of Richie’s life. Rather than be upset by that scene it filled with Richie with a kind of warmth. They had it. They had _him_. Steve and Eddie had all of Richie’s shit taken care of; Richie just needed to lay back and let the two most highly competent men he knew (one of which was the unreciprocated love of his sad, gay life) run his life. And Richie was more than happy to let them do it.

Richie went off to heat himself up one of those pre-prepped meals him and Eddie made on the weekends (not that “weekends” had any meaning these days) and by the time he was carrying it back to the wet bar to eat Eddie and Steve had apparently consolidated their Richie schedules and were back arguing about baseball. Richie sighed and shoveled the stir fry into his mouth.

“Well there’s no rule against a goat playing,” Richie pointed out. “You could probably stick him in centerfield for a game and that would break the curse, right?” Richie giggled. “Plus, imagine a goat in a Cubs jersey? It’d be adorable.”

Steve and Eddie stared at Richie like he grew a second head. Richie responded by shoveling another load of stir fry into his mouth. “What?”

“Of course there’s a rule against that,” Eddie said.

“You would _think_ , but actually-”

“This isn’t _Air Bud_!” Eddie pointed out, a touch hysterically.

Richie blinked. “Wait, there _are_ rules against it?”

Eddie held his face in his hands. “Oh my God, is everything you know about baseball just shit you learned from comedies in the nineties?”

“I think _A League of Their Own_ was eighties…” Richie pointed out.

“We _played baseball_ ,” Eddie pointed out. “In gym! We were _on the same team_.”

“Hope we are,” Richie said with a wink. But Eddie was too far gone losing his mind over Richie’s lack of baseball education to even bother being flustered by a gay joke.

“I know you’ve had the rules explained to you! You played centerfield!”

“Honestly, I mostly just stood in the grass and stared at your ass, Eds,” Richie pointed out truthfully. “Remember those gym shorts?” Richie sighed wistfully. “Because _I_ remember those gym shorts.”

“I can’t fucking believe-”

“Remember them every night in my _dreams_ , right?! Up top, Steve!”

Steve, loyal man Friday that he was, automatically lifted his hand and allowed Richie to high-five it. Richie cackled at the utterly _betrayed_ look Eddie gave Steve.

“Alright, I should go,” Steve announced, ending Eddie’s mental breakdown over Richie’s lack of baseball knowledge. Richie hopped up at the opportunity to follow Steve out to the car. And put some distance between himself and Eddie.

When they were outside Steve turned to Richie and shoved his hands in his pockets.

“You know his divorce is wrapping up,” Steve pointed out. “He’s giving Myra everything. Just to make it go faster.”

“Okay…” Richie said, a little annoyed that Steve knew this when Richie felt like he was always in the dark.

Steve shrugged. “Maybe, well. Maybe talk to Eddie, now that he’s nearly single. Officially.”

Richie goggled at Steve. “Ex- _squeeze_ me? Aren’t you the one who warned me about having the love of my life move in with me? Aren’t you the one who was all ‘this is a bad idea, Richie,’ and ‘he’s after you for your money, Richie-’”

“He’s definitely not. I checked into his IRAs and he was telling the truth. If anything he’s _your_ sugar daddy.”

Richie got a little weak in the knees at the mention of _daddy_ in close conjunction with Eddie. But he shook himself and focused.

“He’s got nowhere to go. He’s my best friend. I’m not going to hit on him, back him into a corner…”

“You never know,” Steve pointed out. “He might not be as against it as you think.”

Richie grabbed Steve’s elbow with his good hand. “Do you know something? Steve, you’re my employee. I order you to tell me whatever you know. Did he say something? I’ll fucking fire you, man, I’ll fire you so fast-”

“We’re not in middle school,” Steve said, breaking his arm free. “And Eddie and I don’t sit around talking about his crushes. But, look: I’m an objective third party observer. And straight dudes do not look at their friends the way he looks at you when you’re not looking.”

“You’re killing me, Steve,” Richie moaned. “Don’t give me hope, man, I’ve been doing so great without it…”

“Just think about it,” Steve suggested. He started to turn away, but then he held himself up, half-turning back. “And… Eddie’s good for you. Broken arm aside, this is the best you’ve looked in years, Richie. Maybe ever.” Steve shrugged, and then he was in his car, pulling away. After dropping a fucking nuclear bomb in Richie’s pants.

* * *

There were beer bottles strewn all around the couch on the floor, because Richie still didn’t have a coffee table and wasn’t about to buy one if he was going to move soon, anyway. They’d crushed a six pack and then some between them, so they were pleasantly buzzed but mostly just enough to make Richie feel warm and sleepy, not really drunk. The TV screen greyed out in front of them, Netflix asked them if they were still watching _Luke Cage_. Richie took as the signal that maybe he should get his old ass to bed. He moaned and stretched, purposefully getting his arm all up in Eddie’s space, knocking the air cast against Eddie’s head. Eddie snorted and captured his fingers—gently, gently—tugging Richie’s arm out of his face.

“Oh Eddie, take a girl out before you hold her hand,” Richie swooned. Eddie smirked, and Richie couldn’t see his eyes in the dim light of the mostly-black TV screen. If he had seen them maybe he could have prepared for what was coming. As it was, Richie never stood a chance. Even if not, he probably never would have stood a chance. He never did, when it was Eddie.

In one quick movement Eddie brought Richie’s captured fingers up to his mouth and pressed a series of four little kisses to them, one for each finger. When he was done he didn’t let go of Richie’s hand, but just held it there, in the air between them. Richie forgot how to breathe.

“Richie?”

“Ghuh?”

“Richie, is, uh… I wasn’t sure how to… say…”

Richie sat up straight. He wanted to pull his hand back from Eddie’s, but he could, wouldn’t, could never want to pull his hand away, he wanted Eddie to have his hand to hold forever. Richie spluttered.

“Eds-!”

“Is this… I don’t want to make it weird…”

Richie would swear later he just kind of… fainted against Eddie’s lips. Because his body moved faster than his brain, and he led with his mouth, typical Richie Tozier. Except instead of saying anything he was kissing Eddie, putting that mouth to the best use it could be put to. And by some fucking wonder of the universe, Eddie was kissing him back.

“Oh my God,” Richie mumbled against Eddie’s lips. But he didn’t let Eddie to reply, he just kept eating Eddie’s mouth. “Oh my God,” he mumbled again. But he wouldn’t stop making out with Eddie. Eventually Eddie managed to pull back, even as Richie latched onto his cheek, his jaw, his, neck. Eddie’s body shuddered and Richie saw it, Richie climbed into his lap to _chase_ it, and Eddie was shuddering against him again.

“Fuck, Richie-”

“Shh, shhh,” Richie whispered into Eddie’s collarbone, because if Eddie didn’t say anything they could keep doing this, if they didn’t acknowledge that this was weird, that this was a bad idea, that they were friends and living together and Richie didn’t even know the state of Eddie’s divorce, then they could keep doing this, then Richie could live the rest of his life in Eddie’s lip, with Eddie’s skin beneath his lips, with the taste of Eddie in his mouth.

“Richie-”

“No, no, shhh,” Richie murmured. He sucked on Eddie’s neck and Eddie's hips jerked beneath them. Richie slid his thighs down on either side of Eddie so their groins slipped together and did it again, biting and then sucking a hickie onto the other side of Eddie’s neck. Eddie jerked again and Richie felt his erection inside his sweatpants, pressing up to meet the answering hardness in Richie’s.

It’s been two months. Richie squeezed Eddie’s shoulder and panted hard.

“Fuck, fuck, hang on-”

“It’s okay,” Eddie muttered. His hands were roaming, and now they cupped Richie’s cheek and tugged him up so their mouths could slot together again. Richie whimpered into Eddie’s mouth. Eddie rolled his hips up against Richie’s and he saw stars.

“Eddie, stop, I’m gonna-”

“It’s okay, it’s okay-”

“No, fuck, I don’t want our first-”

“Richie I’m about to blow my load all over my pants, just do it-”

“Oh fuck, Eds-”

Eddie snaked a hand down between them, rubbing at the bulge outside Richie’s sweats. Richie grabbed his shoulder with his left hand and squeezed hard.

“I can’t-”

“Just do it,” Eddie whispered, nipping at Richie’s jaw. His head was tilted back, dark lashes blinking slowly at him. “Go on, Richie. I’ve got you.”

Richie stiffened and cried out, pressing his hips hard into Eddie’s hand. Eddie squeezed back harder as Richie spilled into Eddie’s hand through his pants, soaking the front of them as he came and came and came.

Richie twitched pathetically as Eddie rubbed him through the list spurts of his orgasm, just really ruining the inside of his sweatpants for all time. Richie could not care less. They were shit sweatpants. He’d burn them in the fucking fireplace he didn’t have, just for this moment, with Eddie’s hand rubbing over his softening erection through the thin cotton pants.

“Fuck, Eds-” Richie’s voice cracked. Eddie nuzzled at his nose and kissed him through it. Richie mouthed back at him, mouth opened too wide, trying to just _eat_ Eddie’s mouth with his own, just pull all of Eddie inside of him and keep him safe there forever.

“Eddie…” Richie reached down to palm at Eddie’s still very noticeably hard dick through his sweatpants. Eddie hissed and humped up into his hand. Richie was transfixed.

“You can just… it’ll take a second…” Eddie winced.

“Can I…” But Richie wasn’t really asking permission. He was sliding off Eddie, a messy of gangly limbs and post-orgasmic noodle muscles, trying desperately to tug Eddie’s pants off with one hand. Eddie, clever, smart, beautiful Eddie, figured out what he was doing after a second and helped him, shoving his pants down to his knees. He started to try and kick them off all the way but Richie was already on him, faceplanting on Eddie’s dick and swallowing it down like it was the antidote for a poison coursing through his system.

Richie didn’t think too hard about how apt that simile was.

“ _Fuuuuck,_ Richie…” Eddie groaned. His head fell back, one hand threading through Richie’s hair. Richie shut his eyes against how good that felt, fuck. His soft dick twitched weakly between his legs. Eddie’s fingernails scratched over his scalp and Richie wanted to cry. Didn’t, though, because he was busy giving the best head he’d ever given in his _life_.

As Richie pushed down over Eddie’s dick, slowly taking another inch, and another, and another, Eddie moaned louder, body sliding down the couch. His head hit the armrest around the time Richie bottomed out on Eddie’s dick, nosing at his pubes. Eddie stared down at Richie in wonder, eyes filled with a manic light.

“Holy fuck how are you doing that?”

Carefully Richie swallowed around Eddie, keeping eye-contact with him. Eddie shuddered, eyes fluttering closed even as he tried to keep them open. Carefully Richie pulled back, just enough to breathe, then slid all the way back down and swallowed again. Eddie moaned, hips snapping up against Richie’s face.

“Sorry, shit, sorry-”

Richie raised an eyebrow and did the maneuver again, faster. Something like a helpless sob escaped Eddie’s throat as he gave in and fucked his hips up into Richie’s face.

“I’m gonna come, Richie, Richie get off-”

But fuck _no_ Richie was _not_ letting Eddie come in his hand like this was tenth fucking grade. Richie kept his good hand fast on Eddie’s hip and kept looking up at him, communicating silently to do it, do it, fuck his mouth, come down his throat, use him, abuse him, give him everything-

Eddie came with a sob, body shuddering as he emptied himself down Richie’s throat. Richie pulled off and lapped gently at Eddie’s dick, cleaning him up, easing him through it. Then he breathed, _hard_ , because that was probably the most cardio he’d done since he was being chased by a murder clown. Richie closed his eyes and breathed.

He probably fell asleep for a second, but not more than a couple minutes. When he came to he was laying with his cheek on the juncture of Eddie’s thigh and hip, Eddie’s softening dick just in front of him. Eddie’s fingers were carding through his hair, rubbing smooth, careful lines through the tangles. Richie twitched and glanced up, and was met by Eddie’s eyes, gazing adoringly down at him.

“Fuck, sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Eddie said. Richie pushed off and let Eddie pull his sweats back up. Richie grimaced as he moved, feeling the cold come on the inside of his sweats. Yergh.

“Fuck, I am wiped. How am I this tired?”

“You’ve still recuperating from a near-fatal injury,” Eddie pointed out, correctly. His fingers slid over Richie’s arm—his bad arm, that still had the air cast from hand to elbow. “You wanna get off the couch?”

“Only if you’re coming with me.” And it was vulnerable and Richie couldn’t look at Eddie as he said it, but it was the fucking truth, and maybe Richie sometimes let his mouth run ahead of him because if he didn’t think about it he could be just brave enough.

But when he looked up Eddie was smiling, a little deliriously, like he hadn’t expected his good fortune.

“Yeah.” Hell yeah.

They stumbled into Richie’s bed, making out the whole way. Richie dropped his pants somewhere along the way because fuck those pants, those pants were trash, and also he was never wearing pants again while Eddie lived with him. Steve would just have to wait outside from now on. Richie allowed himself to be manhandled onto the bed by Eddie, and allowed Eddie to climb on top of him, because Richie knew how sometimes big dogs let little dogs win at playfighting, because it boosted their confidence. He laughed into their kisses and Eddie hit him, like he knew Richie was thinking something mean about him. Richie kissed him harder because he loved that Eddie knew that.

They had to break apart after a while, because two-month dry spell or no, they were still forty and Richie was still weak and recovering. They lay next to each other, ankles interlocked, hands touching.

His heart rate was starting to return to normal. Or, if not exactly Dr.-K’s-carefully-recorded-resting-heart-rate-average, at least it was slowing down from its orgasmic high that it hit minutes again. Richie rolled his head to look at Eddie. His eyes were closed and his breathing was already mostly normal—figured, he’d have a faster recovery time, not being an only-just-recently non-invalid. Yikes, triple negative? Whatever. Eddie’s hand was on his own chest, and Richie watched it rise and fall, almost hypnotized by the slow, steady movement.

“Does this mean I get out of physical therapy today?” Richie asked, before Eddie could fall asleep.

Eddie giggled and rolled over, batting at Richie with a pillow. Richie beamed as he easily captured Eddie and pulled him into his side.

Hooooooooo-lee shit. Edward Kaspbrak, in his arms. Sweaty and tired and giggling lightly as he let Richie hold him.

“I’ll be able to do this better once I get my other arm back,” Richie promised, Eddie’s hair tickling his lips. Eddie squirmed pleasantly and Richie pressed one kiss, then another, then another into his hair. His left hand stroked up and down Eddie’s arm, body still wired with the need to touch, touch, touch.

“I dunno, Henry. You might have too much torque for my delicate bits.”

It didn’t land, for half a second, as Richie’s brain was still orgasm-addled and stupid. But when it finally did:

“Oh my God. Did you just make a Rookie of the Year joke _work_?”

Eddie shifted, rolling over in Richie’s arm so he could look up at him from his chest. He was beaming with pride.

“Maybe I should be the one writing your material. I’m clearly better at it than you.”

“You’re such an irredeemable little bastard,” Richie breathed in wonder. Eddie dove in for a kiss and Richie lapped it up greedily, holding Eddie tight to his chest with his one good arm, like he could keep him from ever leaving this bed.

Richie moved lightly against Eddie, not really with intent, but vaguely trying to gauge when intent might start to factor back into this. Eddie glanced down between them, then looked back up at Richie with a wry grin.

“Really? Already?”

Richie shrugged. “Not right this second, but if you make out with me a few more minutes…”

Eddie kissed him again, then rolled off. He rolled off towards the nightstand, grabbing around for the remote. Richie laid back and admired his bare ass—shockingly toned, _shockingly_ , like, what the fuck, was Eddie doing squats? They were forty, where did he get off having an ass that rock-hard.

It made his head swim and his chest feel all giggly. Eddie was naked, in his bed. Grabbing the remote, bare ass hanging in the breeze. He was _right there_ , frowning at the TV with the remote in hand, chest bare and hairy and…

Richie _had_ this.

He’d never thought he could ever have this.

Just when Richie was pretty sure he was about to start crying, Eddie tossed the remote down the bed and planted himself back against Richie’s side, hand creeping down between them. Richie hummed, hips twitching up even if his dick wasn’t doing much moving yet.

“Figured we could watch something while I play with you,” Eddie said.

If he hadn’t fainted right into the mattress at those words, Richie might’ve gotten onto his knees and blown Eddie to kingdom come. Again. As it was, all he could do was lay there as Eddie gently fondled his dick and balls while they watched Cake Wars together on Netflix.

“That’s okay, right?” Eddie asked after a second, glancing over at Richie worriedly.

It took some doing before Richie was able to come up with some words more than just “ _hummana hummana hummana_.”

“Is it okay if you play with my dick? Yeah, Eds, that’s a big ten-four, good buddy.”

“I meant the watching TV while I did it part, but good to know,” Eddie smirked. He turned his attention back to the TV. His hand kept moving beneath the sheets, rubbing gently at Richie’s dick.

Richie swallowed past the lump in his throat.

“You, uh… You could finger me,” he suggested, after a minute of building up to it.

Eddie’s hand stilled on Richie’s dick, and he nearly took it all back. Eddie glanced over at him. “Oh. You like that?”

It was all Richie could do not to nod his head right off his neck.

“Big fan.”

Eddie pulled his hand out from the sheets. He considered it for a moment, then… stood up from the bed.

“Whoa, whoa, Eddie, wait, I mean, you don’t have to-”

Richie found himself being kissed before he could freak out too badly, Eddie cupping his hand over the back of Richie’s head and bringing him in for a deep, reassuring kiss.

“Be right back.”

On the TV, two women started arguing over a cupcake tower as it teetered precariously. Richie almost got invested when Eddie slipped back in, shutting the door behind him.

“You know I own the _whole_ house. You could leave the door open if you wanted to.”

“Fuck you,” Eddie said, without hesitation, because he knew Richie was giving him shit, and he also knew he _totally_ deserved that shit because he was a weirdo that had to have sex with the bedroom door firmly closed just-so.

Eddie held the gloves up, face screwing up in that defensive, angry way it got when he was embarrassed. “Look, I guess this isn’t normal or whatever, it’s not like a sexy nurse thing, it’s just, it’s your asshole, and if I’m going to stick my fingers in there-”

“It’s not weird,” Richie hurried to reassure him, because oh yes, oh yes. There were doing this. He just had to keep Eddie from freaking out about it and in T-minus five minutes his fingers would be up Richie’s ass.

There was that erection again. Hell yeah.

Eddie shot Richie a skeptical look. “Pretty sure I’ve never seen a guy wear gloves in all the gay porn I watched.”

_Eddie watching gay porn. Eddie watching gay porn one room away from Richie, in Richie’s house, with his little AirPods in, trying to stay quiet, not let on what he was doing in there-_

This was a night of revelations and Richie wasn’t going to be able to handle them all.

“You should know better than to believe what you see in porn, Eddie. It’s normal, I’m into it, don’t overthink it.”

Eddie frowned like he didn’t _really_ believe Richie, but he was willing to take his reassurances, for now. He nudged at Richie as he crawled under the covers with him.

“Roll on your side.”

Eagerly Richie rolled onto his good side, legs instinctively curling up as Eddie pressed up against him. Eddie pressed gentle kisses to his shoulder—his bad shoulder, the one with all the scarring and the months of physical therapy still left ahead of it. Richie melted beneath his touch.

Eddie’s fingers drifted against Richie’s hip, dipping down to the curve of his ass, sweeping up to alight against his lower back. Richie was already trembling, dick twitching up in anticipation.

“I’ve never done this before,” Eddie whispered into Richie’s shoulder.

“You’re perfect,” Richie choked out, even though that wasn’t what he meant to say. Wasn’t what he was _supposed_ to say.

“You gotta tell me when I’m not,” Eddie told him. He scraped his teeth against Richie’s shoulder. “Okay. Tell me if I do this wrong.”

“Just one finger at a time,” Richie told him, even as he felt Eddie press one slick finger against his hole.

“What if I just…” Eddie shifted his hand, and then it was the blunt thickness of his thumb, rubbing against Richie’s rim. Not quite pushing in, just rubbing firmly against the tight, eager muscle, smearing lube all along the sensitive nerve endings on the outside. Richie exhaled shakily.

“That’s good,” he told Eddie.

Eddie’s thumb continued to rub against Richie’s hole, just enough pressure to tease, to make him want it. Eddie’s body was pressed up against his so Richie couldn’t really move back, just barely able to rock his hips needily, but Eddie could easily keep his thumb on the outside of Richie’s wanting hole.

“Shh,” Eddie hummed, pressing kisses against Richie’s neck. “Just relax and enjoy it.”

Richie whimpered as Eddie continued to tease him, wetting the outside of his hole, getting it all oversensitive and fluttering, begging for him to push inside. Finally, _finally_ , Eddie pressed a long, lingering kiss to Richie’s neck as he breached him, thumb slipping inside. He pressed it firmly all along his walls, stretching out his insides, until he switched to his index finger in one easy move. He pumped his finger in and out, two sliding in with no effort at all, Richie’s body needing them, needing more, but only getting as much as Eddie was very deliberately giving him as he finger-fucked him to mindlessness.

“Eddie-”

“Still okay?”

“You’re a fucking prodigy,” Richie groaned. He could feel Eddie’s smirk against his shoulder as he scissored his fingers gently inside Richie, still, so gently, so deliberately. He pulled his fingers out a few times just to add more lube, getting Richie sloppy wet, fucking hell, they were going to have to change the sheets after this. Maybe they’d just crash in Eddie’s bed: Richie could work with that. Eddie would probably prefer it.

If Richie could _walk_ after this slow, tender fucking, that is.

Eddie’s fingers walked inside Richie, just feeling him, wetting him, caressing his insides with all the care and love Eddie gave Richie’s outsides. When Richie thought he might start crying for it, Eddie slipped a third finger inside him, suddenly going slower again, pulling back from the quicker movements he’d started making with two fingers. He just let the three fingers _sit_ inside Richie, to start. Hold him open, waiting as Richie bore down against him, as Richie tried to press his hips backwards, as Richie started whining, dick leaking, body desperate. Only then did Eddie start moving his hand again, and only in slow, easy thrusts.

“Are you hard?” Eddie asked against Richie’s shoulder.

“It’s fucking Niagra Falls over here, are you kidding me, my pubic hair must look like funnel cake at this point.”

“Weird choice of simile,” Eddie observed. “Should I stop and stroke you?”

“No, fucking no, don’t you dare take your hand out.”

Eddie rewarded Richie by pressing his fingers deeper, thrust his hand just that much harder against the tight rim of Richie’s ass. Richie moaned, muscles tight and loose, relaxed and tense all at the same time.

“You’re laying on your good arm,” Eddie pointed out.

 _Oh_. Eddie was previously a straight man. He didn’t know. Richie grinned against his pillow as he leaned forward a little: just enough to get some distance so he could fuck himself back against Eddie’s hand harder.

“If your wrist can hold out long enough, I don’t need it,” Richie explained.

Eddie’s fingers stuttered, fingers massaging along his inner walls contemplatively as Eddie turned this over in his mind.

“You can come just from this?”

“Press your fingers forward a bit.”

“Forward like my forward or forward like-”

“Like towards my dick.”

Eddie’s fingers shifted, probing growing more focused. As they dragged along Richie’s prostate Richie moaned loudly, canting his hips back sharply.

“Right there, Eds. You keep doing that…”

Eddie was a fucking prodigy, like Richie said. Eddie was an attentive student and a fast learner, when he wanted to be. And now that Eddie knew there was something to look for, something to _focus_ on, Eddie focused on it with the intensity he did everything.

“So if I just keep fucking against that spot,” Eddie mused, but the little _bitch_ was hardly _fucking_ him. He was just slowly, _slowly_ , dragging his fingers against it, rubbing them _in_ … and _out_ … pressing down _hard_ against Richie’s prostate but slow, _tortuously_ slow. Richie moaned again, dick leaking another glob of precome down the shaft.

“Fuck, I love the sounds you make,” Eddie murmured.

“Seriously?”

“Your voice is so sexy,” Eddie said.

Richie’s head swam with the compliment. But he couldn’t even focus on it, because Eddie’s fingers ticked up their tortuously slow pace, fucking into him with intent, while still making sure to press hard against Richie’s prostate with every slide.

“Fuck, Eds, you’re fucking _milking_ me…”

“Gross.”

“No, it’s what it’s- It’s a thing, I’m not being Trashmouth. I mean, you know-”

“Shh. Just because your voice is sexy doesn’t mean you have to talk.”

Richie laughed into his pillow, delirious. He needed to come so bad, relaxing fingering turning into something impossibly desperate and excruciatingly exquisite. Eddie stopped finger-fucking him just long enough to dribble some more lube down his fingers, directly into Richie’s asshole.

“You don’t need that much,” Richie told him.

Eddie’s face was pressed between Richie’s shoulder blades, so Richie could feel the heat of his breath as he panted: “I like the way it sounds.”

Richie squeezed his eyes shut, suddenly hyper-aware of the _sounds_ Eddie’s fingers were making in his ass. The rhythmic _squelch squelch squelch_ of the combination of lube and fingers and asshole. Richie whined and tried to fuck back against Eddie, but he was still to close, he still wasn’t letting Richie move into his hand. Richie just had to lay there, and _take_ _it_ : just offer up his hole for Eddie to do what he wanted to with it, fuck it at the speed he wanted, pour as much lube in it as he wanted, get Richie all sloppy and wet and _gaping_ for him, asshole chasing Eddie’s fingers every time they pulled out, clenching around them every time they pushed in, trying to get them to stay, to fuck him deeper, harder, faster.

He needed more, he needed _thicker_ and _fuller_ …

“Are you hard?” Richie whispered.

“Of course I’m fucking hard I’m three fingers deep in your asshole.”

“Fuck, Eddie, you can fuck me, just, put it in-”

“I’m too fucking wound up, I’m not gonna fuck you for the first time when I’m going to come two seconds after I push inside.”

“Oh my fuck, Eddie, that’s so hot, just stick your dick in me-”

Eddie jerked his fingers fast inside Richie, fucking him hard, squelchy, sloppy sounds filling up the bedroom alongside their panting breaths.

“Just come,” Eddie told him. “Just fucking come, and then I can get off, fuck.”

“Give me another finger,” Richie moaned, hips properly fucking back against Eddie’s fingers now, fucking himself on them, on Eddie, oh fuck, Richie wanted more leverage, he wanted to roll over and press his face into the pillow, hump the fucking mattress-

Eddie slipped his pinkie in and Richie thought he was going to cry, because Eddie didn’t even _wait_ this time, he just fucked Eddie right through the bigger intrusion, spreading Richie’s tight hole wide, rubbing hard against his prostate, milking the precome out of Richie until he couldn’t fucking stand it anymore, until he had to come, he fucking-

Richie came with a shout, body curling forwards and back, twitching his way through his orgasm even as Eddie fucked him hard through it, fingers _unrelenting_ inside him. As Richie twitched, breathing hard, Eddie fucked him one, two more times, _hard_ , fingers bottoming out inside him.

“You good?”

“Fuck, yes, yes,” Richie moaned, pleasure still rocking his body.

“Good, fuck-”

And then Eddie was grabbing him, rolling him over onto his stomach. Richie hit the pillow before he knew what was happening, and then Eddie was on top of him, dick pressing against his ass. Richie’s entire body trembled, wanting it, wanting it so fucking bad.

But Eddie didn’t press inside. He smeared his dick—fuck, it was so _wet_ , his dick must have been leaking like Richie’s had—all along the crack of Richie’s ass. Then he started fucking against it, just humping himself against Richie’s ass like a fucking teenager, until in seconds Eddie was grabbing his shoulder “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” and Richie felt Eddie’s come striping his ass. Richie moaned again, face pressed against the pillow as his body _shook_ , orgasm feeling like it was still cresting as Eddie came all over his ass, his back. Oh fucking hell, Richie wished he could see him.

Eddie collapsed off Richie, and Richie used the opportunity to roll over and grab him, hauling Eddie on top of his front, over the fucking splint, so he could shove his tongue down Eddie’s throat in sloppy, post-coital _need_.

“Fucking hell you’re the hottest fucking person alive,” Richie moaned into Eddie’s mouth.

“Shut up,” Eddie grumbled.

“I fucking mean it, fuck, I’ve never been finger-fucked that good, Eddie, you’re a finger-fucking prodigy.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Richie licked into Eddie’s mouth, sucked on his tongue. Eddie nipped at Richie’s lips, their teeth clacked together. Richie drooled into Eddie’s mouth and maybe Eddie drooled a little into his, too, and it was all a big wet fucking mess and Richie was so fucking tired and so fucking in love.

When they finally broke apart, panting hard, Eddie curled up against Richie’s chest. Richie stroked his good hand over Eddie’s back, trembling lightly and hoping Eddie couldn’t feel it even though he was laying full across Richie’s chest. At least he didn’t say anything about it, even if he did notice it.

Before they could fall asleep Richie tapped two fingers against Eddie’s shoulder.

“Do you want to move this to your bedroom?”

“Yes, thank you, I know these sheets haven’t been changed since the maid came last week.”

“It’s been _one_ week.”

“Ungh, it’s gross, I change my sheets every four days.”

“You’re an environmental nightmare. You know we’re on water rationing out here in California? You’re gonna cause a fucking forest fire washing the sheets that often.”

Eddie snorted as he pushed off Richie and started hunting around for his clothes before giving up and just stood there, wiping his dick off on Richie’s sheets. He’d tossed the latex glove away at some point—Richie guessed right after he came, he was _way_ too distracted in those moments to notice something like that.

“Don’t give me that California guilt-trip, I hear it enough from Steve,” Eddie grumbled. Then he cocked his head and held out a hand to Richie. “C’mon. I’m tired.”

They stumbled through Richie’s stupid empty glass house completely naked, scurrying into Eddie’s bedroom as fast as they could between kissing and general grab-assery. Well, if there was a pap parked outside, maybe he’d get a lucky shot. He deserved it for the dedication, Richie figured.

* * *

Richie had his chin pressed to Eddie’s shoulder as they scrolled through his laptop together.

“But what do you _like_?” Eddie asked for the hundredth time.

“I don’t know! My thoughts on a house are basically I need you in it and a bed, preferably. That’s about it.”

“You’re impossible,” Eddie grumbled, but Richie could hear him smiling. Richie gave him a little one-armed squeeze and nibbled at his ear. Eddie squirmed against him but didn’t stop it.

“I like fireplaces?” Richie offered, remembering last week when he had fleetingly thought about burning his sweatpants in a fireplace he didn’t have.

“Okay, great, _thank you_ ,” Eddie said, already typing in the criterion. “What about like… cozy versus modern?”

“Cozy,” Richie replied automatically.

“Stone and wood over glass and steel?”

“Yeah. Yeah, definitely.”

Richie glanced around his big empty house.

“Is it weird that I’m picturing all our houses back in Derry?”

Eddie sighed and leaned back a little firmer against Richie’s chest. “No. It’s where we grew up. It makes sense you’d associate it with…” Eddie tripped over the last word, but forced it out: “…home.”

Richie gave Eddie an extra little squeeze for that.

“You’re not going to get a northern-Maine style house out here, but that at least gives me a ballpark-”

“Heh, ballpark.”

“Shut up, you’re not allowed to make any more baseball jokes until you actually watch a fucking game.”

“But we already know I’m such a good catcher…” Richie cooed, grinding his hips against Eddie’s ass.

“You’re the worst, forget it, I’m moving back to New York.”

Richie stayed quiet for all of fifteen seconds while Eddie modified their search criterion. Then he murmured into Eddie’s ear: “You know, it’s kind of ironic we haven’t tested out my ability to… pitch.”

Eddie stiffened in his arms. He checked the clock on his laptop. “Steve’s gonna be here in like thirty minutes.”

“Well then we better hurry up, right?”

A half hour later Steve was storming through the house, shouting “Richie? Eddie? Where’s Richie, I need him for the podcast at one-” and, in spite of Eddie practically climbing on top of Richie’s face to _stop him_ , Richie managed to call out:

“In here, Steve! I’m almost ready!”

Eddie hid beneath the covers while Richie lay, splayed out and incredibly proud of himself against the headboard. Steve sighed and pulled up to a stop in the doorway, eyebrows raised.

“You’ve got five minutes to shower and change, let’s go.”

“Make it ten and you’ve got a deal.”

“ _Five_ ,” Steve said, turning away. Then, just as he was going to close the bedroom door, he called over his shoulder: “Mazel Tov, Eddie. But in the future, how about we keep Richie on his schedule, okay?”

“…okay,” Eddie called out from under the blankets.

Richie didn’t make it out the door in five minutes. But he didn’t take much more than fifteen, thanks mostly to Eddie bribing him with a combination of kisses and kicks to his ass. As Eddie transferred Richie to Steve, Eddie warned him:

“Be good.”

“Never,” Richie promised.

“I’ve got him,” Steve said.

And Richie really, really did not mind those two guys sharing custody of him. It was basically his every fantasy come true. Except for the broken arm, but: these things heal. He’d get the chance to jack Eddie off eventually. In the meantime, Richie never minded letting Eddie take control.


End file.
